


take me home

by enamuko



Series: Tenderverse [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Good Brother Miklan AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23867326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: The year was 1180, 17th of the Verdant Rain Moon. Miklan Anschutz Gautier was 29 years old, to the day. It was his birthday.And he was going to see his younger brother for the first time in over a decade.(Sequel to 'Tender'.)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Glenn Fraldarius, Glenn Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Glenn Fraldarius/Miklan, Implied Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Miklan
Series: Tenderverse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787095
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	1. sylvain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InkyWandmaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkyWandmaker/gifts).



> So someone in the comments of Tender mentioned they wanted to see a sequel wherein Glenn and Miklan meet up with Sylvain and Felix again. This originally started as a small exploration of that.
> 
> It did not stay that way for long.
> 
> I thought about uploading each chapter over time, but I'm too excited to be finished with this and to have the like, three other fans of this pairing actually reading this fic, so-- here it is.

For the fourth time so far that day, Sylvain ended up flat on his ass on the floor of the training grounds.

“Get _up_.”

Felix was pointing a training sword at him, stance aggressive, looking every bit as deadly with a hunk of wood in his hand as he did with an actual blade.

Normally, Sylvain would have made a stupid joke about being up all night with company, or just poked fun at the way Felix was already starting to get wrinkles from all the frowning and scowling he did, but for once he wasn’t in the mood.

“I yield,” he said instead, scooting back until he could use his training lance to push himself to his feet. “Sorry, Felix. I guess my head’s just not in it today.”

“I can _see_ that.” Felix tapped his foot, not quite impatient, more annoyed than anything as he tapped his training sword against his leg at the same time. “What’s your problem? I didn’t hear you bring home some girl last night, so it can’t be that.”

“Does that mean you usually listen for me bringing girls to my room?”

He teased, but his heart wasn’t in it any more than it was into getting beaten into submission. He was sore all over, and not the good kind of sore.

Being an ass still earned him a smack in the side with a wooden sword, which was to be expected and was his own fault, really. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to whine about it, though.

“I just couldn’t sleep, okay?”

Since Felix had apparently accepted the yield (not that he had much of a choice, and honestly, even Felix wasn’t that much of an asshole— not usually, at least), Sylvain went and replaced his training lance in the weapon rack and started to stretch his exhausted muscles.

He could tell Felix was annoyed that he cut their training session early (although Felix mostly seemed to be annoyed _any_ time he wasn’t training these days), but there was something else to his hovering, too.

Thankfully being friends with someone since they were born gave you a bit of insight into their thoughts and feelings, because Sylvain wasn’t sure how he would be able to _deal_ with Felix otherwise. Not that he was exactly emotionally available himself, but Felix was a very special kind of closed off, the kind where he couldn’t even ask a simple probing question like, ‘Why couldn’t you sleep last night, Sylvain?’ for fear he might be, oh, emotionally available or some kind of nonsense.

Not like he was bitter or anything.

“You know, restless. Tossing and turning. Couldn’t relax.” He chuckled, winking at Felix. “Maybe I _should_ have brought a girl home, huh?”

Felix threw his sword at him and said nothing, leaving him and the sword, which Sylvain put up alongside his own training weapon.

Yep, pretty much the reaction he’d been expecting.

See, the thing was, it wasn’t really that uncommon for Sylvain to have trouble falling asleep at night. It was actually probably _more_ common than him actually being able to have a good night’s sleep without trying. He knew all the methods; drinking warm milk, tiring himself out with training, pretty much anything anyone had ever suggested to another person to help them sleep at night, he’d tried.

Usually _something_ worked. And what he’d said about bringing girls home wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Sure, things usually never went very far, but a roll in the hay was an easy way to make his brain turn off for a little bit and tire his body out at the same time, even if it was just a quick bit of hand action. But the last time he’d tried that, it had ended with him not even able to keep himself _interested_ and having to give his lady friend some ‘extra attention’ before sending her home.

He might not have thought much of most of the girls he brought back to his room, but that didn’t mean he was going to send them home unsatisfied. That just wasn’t good for his reputation, after all!

There was just… Something bothering him as of late, and he couldn’t really put his finger on it. Nothing had really changed. There had been some excitement when the professor had arrived, and even though having her around made everything a lot more interesting, that had all pretty much died down. Their missions had been… Nerve wracking, maybe, but nothing he hadn’t come to expect, seeing as he was the Gautier heir and all.

So why he was so damn restless all the time, he just couldn’t say.

Some of the others had tried to talk to him about it— Ingrid for one, and also Mercedes, and even Ashe had asked him at dinner one night if he was feeling okay. But since even Sylvain didn’t quite know what was wrong, he hadn’t needed to lie to them when he said it was probably nothing.

Really, having trouble getting to sleep was the _least_ of his worries. It was actually almost _refreshing_ to have a normal problem for once.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying, though. He could put up with everyone worrying after him by throwing up a smile and teasing them about caring about him, but something like what had happened with Felix that morning was a much bigger problem. Not only because getting distracted in training was dangerous and could get him hurt pretty badly, or because if he acted like that during a mission he was going to get himself _killed_ , but also because Felix was the one person who not only wouldn’t be fooled by his stupid non-chalant act but also because Felix wouldn’t just politely ignore it anyway.

He’d never been good at assuming Sylvain was capable of taking care of himself. Which, fair enough, he supposed.

The other thing about Felix, though, was that whole emotional availability thing. Not only was it pretty exhausting being the emotionally mature one in their friendship, but it also meant that despite getting worried about him, or whatever passed for worried when you were Felix Hugo Fraldarius, he never really… Tried to approach Sylvain and talk to him about what was wrong. Mostly he just hovered in the background, being even _more_ rude and nasty than usual until Sylvain got fed up with it and spilled the beans.

So it was frustrating now, because he had no idea what to tell him except what he had already told him; he was having trouble sleeping. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he was trying to _lie_ to Felix.

He was good at lying, but not to Felix.

Even more than that, it was surprising when Felix cornered him after class (which he had spent zoning out, not quite able to fall asleep right there on the table like Linhardt did just about everywhere, but not having the energy to actually focus) and practically pushed him up against a wall, trapping him with his arm boxing him in.

“When are you going to get over this and stop moping around?”

“I haven’t been _moping_ — I just haven’t been sleeping,” he said immediately, even though as soon as he said it something didn’t feel quite right, and that was only made worse by the way Felix looked at him; annoyed, like he’d said something wrong or, in this case, something _stupid_.

“Tch. You’ve really forgotten, then?” Felix snorted as he pulled his arm back and stepped away, turning to head off to the training grounds like this had all been a big waste of his time. “I guess that’s a step in the right direction. Try to get some sleep, dumbass.”

Sylvain stared after him.

Sylvain didn’t get some sleep.

For one thing, it was still the middle of the day, but even when he did turn in for the night— after spending the entire day actually focusing on his school work for once and hacking at a training dummy like he was dealing with his problems the same way Felix did since he apparently knew something he didn’t— he wasn’t surprised to find himself staring at his ceiling, exhausted but wide awake.

He thought back to what Felix had said, about what he could have possibly forgotten that would leave him feeling like this, that constant sense of dread in the pit of his stomach that made him lie awake at night unable to fall asleep no matter how tired he was…

Then, that night, after having given up on any hope of actually getting to sleep, Sylvain was sitting at his desk staring at a book without absorbing anything he was reading, when he glanced over at his calendar to check what day the next round of certifications exams were, knowing Professor Byleth was going to want him to try for his next certification and he was in no shape to be doing something like that if he was completely sleep deprived.

The Verdant Wind moon. A little red circle helpfully reminded him that their certification exams were going to happen on the 23rd, more than a week away, which gave him plenty of time to get his shit sorted and pull himself together. Not that he actually cared that much about his grades, but Professor Byleth had a weird way of motivating him and making him actually _want_ to succeed, and not only because she was cute.

(Although that surely played a part, just not as big a part as he or anyone else would have expected.)

It was the rainy season, but Sylvain didn’t think that had much to do with anything, since the weather didn’t do much to his mood otherwise. (He lived in a tundra, for starters, so the weather Garreg Mach had to offer paled in comparison to the weather back home…)

When it hit him, though? When it _finally_ hit him? It was like a brick to the face, and he realized quite suddenly why Felix had called him a dumbass.

The 17th of the Verdant Rain Moon. Three days away.

Miklan’s birthday.

On further reflection, which he had lots of time for because he most definitely didn’t manage to get to sleep after _that_ revelation, he decided it was actually very unfair of Felix to call him a dumbass because he forgot about something like that.

It had been twelve years, after all. Twelve years seemed like a perfectly reasonable amount of time to go and forget something like your disowned brother’s birthday. Nevermind that he’d spent two of those years moping about it and another four or five spending the week leading up to Miklan’s birthday in a crippling depression that, wouldn’t you know it, involved a lot of him having trouble sleeping and mostly just being useless for a while.

That was years ago, though. He had pushed all of that out of his mind and moved on. He hadn’t had one of his little ‘Miklan episodes’ for like, six years now, so why was he suddenly falling back into that stupid old pattern? Especially when his memory wasn’t even good enough to recall _why_ he was feeling like shit until Felix actually pointed it out to him?

It made sense that Felix remembered before he did, though. Felix might have been even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) than he was at the whole ‘shoving your feelings down and ignoring them completely’ thing, but he never forgot anything.

He never _let_ himself forget anything.

Sylvain wished he _had_ forgotten about it, honestly. Or at least hadn’t brought it up. He probably wouldn’t have even thought about what was causing the problem if Felix hadn’t pushed him up against the wall after class and _made_ him think about it. Now he had two days to think about something he had gone out of his way to forget.

He wasn’t going to be getting any sleep.

“Hey.”

It would have been a totally normal greeting if not for the fact that Felix kicked the leg of his chair when he said it, nearly knocking him over and _definitely_ making him jump out of his seat, since he was halfway to falling asleep in it.

He didn’t even have enough energy to be annoyed at Felix. Not that he usually bothered anyway, since being annoyed with Felix didn’t usually get him far or do much except make him feel weird and bad afterwards, which he thought was pretty unfair since Felix was almost _always_ annoyed with _him_.

He did manage a decent glare at him as he scooted his chair back into place and settled back in it, getting as comfortable as he could manage in a hard-back wooden chair without tilting it back and giving Felix even more ammunition to put him on the ground.

If he had the energy he would have made a joke about getting Felix on top of him an awful lot lately, but it seemed like sleep deprivation affected his sense of humour just as much as it affected the rest of his mood.

“I figured it out,” he said, not even bothering to return the simple greeting. Maybe Felix would appreciate him getting to the point for once. “Would have preferred just forgetting about it, but hey, thanks anyway.”

He couldn’t resist being just a _little_ snippy— it was the whole ‘no sleep’ thing getting to him— but if Felix cared about him being a snarky bastard, well, he’d just be a hypocrite. And he didn’t seem to, just snorted and dropped into his chair next to him and crossed his arms the same way Sylvain had, almost mockingly.

“Whether you remembered or not, you still weren’t sleeping,” Felix said. “At least now you know why. Maybe now you can get over it and get back to being your regular annoying self. At least _that_ Sylvain trains sometimes.”

There weren’t many people more flippant than Sylvain. He would turn just about anything into a joke, no matter how inappropriate the situation, which had gotten him scolded or smacked by Ingrid too many times for him to count. But right now Felix was challenging him for his ‘biggest jackass’ crown, and the most impressive part was that Sylvain was pretty sure he wasn’t even trying.

He had that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach like right before he said something stupid to a woman that got him slapped, the feeling where he knew what he was going to say was stupid but he was going to say it anyway.

“Wow, thanks, Felix. Great advice. Is that what you did with Glenn? Just ‘got over it’? No wonder you sleep so well at night.”

He had his hands folded behind his head and had ignored his good sense so he could lean back in his chair as he said it, but the moment he finished saying it he knew what a mistake it had been, because the next thing he knew he was on the floor, head throbbing from bouncing off the stone, and all he could see was Felix’s boots— sideways— as he walked away.

Sylvain knew he was in a special kind of trouble, that he’d fucked up especially bad, when Felix didn’t even bother insulting him or giving him some kind of parting scathing comment. But, hey.

He’d never said he was any good at this whole ‘communication’ thing.

Sylvain Jose Gautier had been 7 years old when his older brother had run away from home.

It had absolutely destroyed him.

Now that he was older, of course, he understood. Miklan had been born without a Crest, and the Gautier family was particularly harsh about that, for reasons Sylvain didn’t quite understand since the rest of the nobility seemed to consider it ‘a bit much’ (which in noble speak was practically _horrific_ ). Even the king’s own Crestless brother had been given a dukedom and allowed to live a quiet life, even if he _was_ excluded from the line of succession, which to Sylvain sounded more like a pro than a con.

Miklan had also been in love with another man. Which was one of those things you just… Didn’t talk about. You didn’t openly disparage it because the Church’s stance was that love was love and it didn’t matter whether you were a man, a woman, neither, both, or any combination of the above. But you didn’t openly support it, either, especially if you were from one of the Crest bearing families, because your entire life had to revolve around continuing on your bloodline and love didn’t matter more, _couldn’t_ matter more than the family legacy.

Sylvain had more than once considered following in Miklan’s footsteps, leaving the whole ridiculous Gautier family ‘legacy’ behind, not have to worry about being chased for his Crest or having his whole life decided for him. So yeah, he understood _now_.

But try explaining that to a 7 year old who had just lost the most important person in his life, with no explanation as to why except the one provided by his scowling father, whose impotent rage at being so openly _defied_ even if he’d never seemed to give much of a shit about what Miklan did before that moment meant he wasn’t exactly a _sympathetic ear_.

Sylvain had always looked up to his older brother, no matter how much his father tried to keep them apart, or at least keep Sylvain busy enough with all of the ‘family heir’ crap he’d shovelled onto him to make sure he didn’t have time to properly be ‘poisoned’ by Miklan. Which was how his father had always talked about it after Miklan had left.

He’d be the first to admit Miklan had probably not been the best influence on an impressionable young mind— he cursed like a sailor, for one thing, and he could have a nasty temper, and he could be way too rough sometimes— but he was the farthest thing from poison Sylvain could imagine. He’d been young then, sure, but Miklan? Miklan had been the best thing about being home.

And then suddenly he was gone. One night he’d given him a too tight hug, told him he loved him, and left with a ruffle of Sylvain’s hair, all like he might do if he was setting off for a week.

Sylvain never saw him again.

He probably would have never known _why_ he even left if not for the letter Glenn sent to Rodrigue, and the outrage it had caused. That was when his father had officially disowned Miklan, but considering he’d left of his own accord, Sylvain was pretty sure that didn’t bother him at all and was just his father’s way of airing his frustrations.

And… Glenn. Another complication. For a while Sylvain had blamed Glenn for the loss of his brother, and even though he didn’t say that to Felix’s face, he was pretty sure he knew and felt the same way about Miklan. They were dumb kids; things like that happened when you didn’t really understand what was going on, especially when your parents were too busy being mad or sad or whatever to actually sit down and talk to you about it.

They never talked about it. In fact, Sylvain wasn’t sure he’d so much as said Glenn’s name since his disappearance.

It really made what he’d said all the more stupid in retrospect, but hey. There was a reason intelligence and common sense were two very different things.

Sylvain had been 7 when Miklan had disappeared suddenly and without a trace, not that he imagined his father did much to actually look for him. He might have been enraged about Miklan leaving without his permission, but that didn’t mean he cared about him. Just like he’d never really cared about Sylvain. And his mother had tried to care, or at least that was how he saw it, based on the vague memories he had of her half-hearted attempts at bonding with him in his early years— but she’d never really been able to manage it.

Miklan had been the only member of his family who ever _really_ cared about him, which was probably what surprised him the most about Miklan just picking up and leaving— how he could just abandon him with a family that didn’t care about him?

Again, he understood now— or at least he understood a bit better than when he was a kid. His parents didn’t love him, but he was the heir, which meant he was going to be well taken care of. He had friends who cared about him even if his parents didn’t. Running away meant that Glenn didn’t have to go off and become a knight and die in some stupid battle, or end up married to Ingrid.

Just because he understood didn’t erase the ache he’d felt.

But, that was a long time ago. 12 years. Like, long enough that he should have had some measure of distance from the whole thing, if only because he didn’t even have that many clear memories of Miklan, that was how young he’d been. Sure, he’d never really talked to anyone about it or done anything to really try to heal and move on, but hey, he was from Faerghus, where the cool thing to do was just sort of stew in your own trauma until you snapped, right?

It was what all of his friends did, anyway. And Sylvain hated to be left out.

It was two days before Felix spoke to him again.

It wasn’t like they didn’t see each other. They didn’t stop going to class. It wasn’t some big, dramatic fight. Ingrid shot him a few dirty looks out of the corner of her eye whenever she saw him and Felix sitting an entire room apart from each other, not speaking, but he was sure Felix was getting the same treatment since it wasn’t like Ingrid would have any idea what they were fighting about. (No way Felix would tell her something like that. Sylvain was clueless, he wasn’t dumb.)

Just, one day they weren’t talking. Then, the next day, they were.

Problem solved, right?

“Did you finally manage to get some sleep? You don’t look quite as useless as you did.”

“A little,” he answered honestly, since he had actually managed to get _some_ shut-eye. He was pretty sure it had more to do with finally being too exhausted to avoid sleeping any longer than because he’d actually dealt with any of the shit that had caused him to lose sleep in the first place.

It had always passed before. It would pass again. Miklan’s birthday would come and go and he’d be left with an ache that he ended up forgetting the reason for, hopefully sooner rather than later, and everything could go back to normal. Maybe next year he could go back to not having to deal with it at all; it had been years, after all…

“Good. You can train with me, then, and make it up to me for that pathetic display last time.”

Sylvain groaned, but since it was the closest thing he was going to get to both an apology and forgiveness from Felix, he wasn’t about to turn it down.

“Fine, fine. But after _that,_ we’re going out for dinner, alright?”

Sylvain knew Felix felt bad when he didn’t argue with _that_ , just grumbled and accepted it in silence.

“I thought we were going to _dinner_. This is not _dinner_.”

Sylvain ignored the way Felix was impatiently tapping his foot behind him, humming to himself as he perused the offerings of the merchants. He gave Anna a wink as he perused the various baubles she had on display, debating whether any of them would make good gifts for any potential dates. He’d been slacking on that front, considering he’d been too tired to even think straight, never mind try to keep up on his flirting.

He was pretty tired _now_ , too, considering he’d still only gotten the bare minimum amount of sleep to keep himself going and had spent over an hour getting knocked around the training arena by Felix, but he had a weird amount of energy he didn’t want to waste. He just hoped it wasn’t his body’s last hurrah before giving out on him entirely.

“We’ll go in a minute,” Sylvain said, trying to placate, probably doing anything but, but not really caring. “Hey, Felix, what do you think of this one? Think any of the girls would like it?”

He held up a necklace for inspection that he had barely taken a second glance at, but Felix on the other hand didn’t even bother to look at it at _all_.

“If all you’re going to do is stand around buying presents for girls you’re just going to dump in a week anyway, I’m leaving.”

Felix turned to walk away, and Sylvain practically sprang forward to grab him by the elbow and keep him from walking off.

“Aw, c’mon, Fe,” he said, releasing Felix’s elbow as soon as Felix made to elbow him in the ribs with it. Felix didn’t like feeling trapped, and Sylvain wasn’t gonna keep him if he really wanted to go, but.

But.

Felix also didn’t like to be guilt-tripped, but it was less likely to get him punched, so he said, “I trained with you, you have to keep up your end of the bargain.”

“There was never a _bargain_ , Sylvain,” Felix said, glaring at him, but there wasn’t any real heat or ice or venom in it, and he went along when Sylvain pulled at his elbow again. “And I certainly never agreed to wander around looking for presents that are just going to sit and collect dust in your room. The only reason I’m even going to dinner with you is because I’m hungry and you’re paying.”

Sylvain doesn’t actually remember saying he was going to pay, but hey, the fact that Felix kept his training to only just over an hour so they would still have time to head out and get back before curfew (not that Sylvain was worried about that, not that Sylvain had _ever_ worried about that) meant he should probably just be grateful, shut up, and shell out.

“It’s market day, Felix, let’s just take a quick look around, huh? Not much longer, I promise.”

He tugged him away from Anna’s stall and towards the blacksmith, figuring that at least looking at weapons would be more interesting to Felix, and he could probably stand to pick up a few things if he really _was_ going to be taking his certification exam soon…

Felix did perk up a bit more when he had an entire table of sharp things laid out in front of him, so Sylvain took that as a win. He was going to drift over to the lances, honest, but he stuck by Felix just a moment longer to see if his eyes happened to linger on anything— gift ideas were hard to come by for your friend who really didn’t care about anything _but_ swords when that was a topic you weren’t really familiar with… And he wouldn’t say it out loud, but after spending an entire day without Felix so much as looking in his direction _and_ having to studiously ignore his own feelings, it was nice to just spend time like this, really made him feel like things were getting back to normal— 

“Look, they have some right here. Just buy something to replace that rusty old piece of garbage already.”

“I can’t just _buy a sword_ , it has to be the _right_ sword. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even _know_ me.”

It wasn’t that odd for Sylvain not to recognize someone’s voice. He didn’t always pay attention to details like that, there were plenty of knights and staff that he’d only ever seen in passing and probably a bunch he’d never seen at _all, let_ alone heard, and on market days it wasn’t uncommon for people to filter up from the surrounding town to poke around, since all the best merchants knew to go to where the rich nobles’ kids flocked.

Something about _that voice_ , about _those voices_ , though— a dozen comments and conversations just like that one went in one ear and out the other around him, but _those voices_ made him pause, made him look up from the sword Felix was scrutinizing so closely he wasn’t sure he’d even _heard_ them…

And he froze.

He didn’t say anything. Not a word, not a noise, as he felt all of the blood drain out of him. As he felt his mouth go dry and his throat constrict. As he felt time slow down around him, as the sources of the voices stopped perusing the blacksmith’s wares and took notice of him now that he was staring at them wide-eyed instead of being hunched over Felix’s shoulder looking at swords. He _barely_ had enough presence of mind to grab for Felix’s arm, too tight, making Felix tense up under his touch and start to say something before he cut himself off with a choked noise.

Later, he would assume they all looked pretty hysterical; four men standing there gaping at each other with eyes the size of dinner plates. In the moment, though? He was sure he would have stayed frozen there forever if one of them hadn’t stepped forward, stepping around his companion, hand outstretched like he was reaching for a skittish animal, and voice cracking as he said,

“Hey, Sylvie. Long— Long time no see, huh?”


	2. miklan

The year was 1180, 17th of the Verdant Rain Moon. Miklan Anschutz Gautier (even though he was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to call himself a Gautier any longer, but who was going to say anything about it) was 29 years old, to the day. It was his birthday.

That morning he had woken up in a ratty bedroll that definitely needed replacing, inside a tent that was thankfully still holding up, because he could tell just from the smell of the air that it had rained through the night. He could hear their horses shuffling around under their makeshift canopy. He had the thought that he should get up and find somewhere they could get a drink, but he could feel the damp chill of a misty morning seeping in even through the oilskin tent, not at all hindered by the threadbare bedroll, and he didn’t want to get up and abandon what warmth he had.

The warmth of another body next to him, curved perfectly with their back to his chest, navy hair a wild mess against what passed for a cushion. Navy hair that had fallen out of its ponytail in the night and which he couldn’t resist burying his face in to press a kiss to the back of his lover’s neck that made him half-shiver in his sleep and let out a little sleepy sigh.

Miklan had spent the last 12 years of his life waking up next to Glenn every single morning, and he was _very_ sure he would never stop enjoying it just as much as he did the first time.

There were only two options in the morning for Glenn; either he was up at the crack of dawn, or getting him out of bed before noon was a royal pain in the ass. Judging by the way he grumbled as Miklan pressed more and more kisses against the back of his neck, it was going to be the second option.

He was pretty sure he was to blame, considering their late night _activities_ , so he wouldn’t give him too much shit for it. But he also wasn’t going to stop kissing him.

“Miklaaaaan.”

Glenn tried to squirm away, but since they were wrapped up in the same bed roll that had definitely not been made for two people, he didn’t really have anywhere to go. Exactly how Miklan liked him.

“M’trying to sleep.”

At least, that was what Miklan was _pretty sure_ Glenn was trying to say. It was hard to tell when he was doing his absolute best to bury his face in the well-worn pillow that was so flat he was pretty sure it didn’t even _count_ anymore.

“It’s morning.”

Miklan wasn’t even going to try and _guess_ what Glenn said the second time, but he was pretty sure there were a lot of expletives involved.

He chuckled deep in his throat and looped his arms around Glenn’s waist, pulling him even more flush against him. Glenn tried to kick him in the shin, but since he was only half awake to begin with, he didn’t accomplish much, and his squirming left a perfect opening for Miklan to squeeze his head in between the gap between Glenn’s head and shoulder and pepper those same quick kisses along the length of his neck.

“Mik—!” Glenn’s voice came out as a high-pitched whine that broke into a fit of giggles even as he was still trying his damndest to kick Miklan. Spurred on by his success, his hands slid up under Glenn’s loose shirt— too cold to sleep naked, unfortunately, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. His teasing fingers found Glenn’s sensitive ribs, and he hardly had to poke or prod at all before Glenn was dissolving into a manic fit of breathless giggling, tears welling up in his eyes as he thrashed in the bed roll, not even really trying to kick him as much as he was just lashing out at random.

When Glenn was breathless and panting, Miklan eased up to let him catch his breath, hands sliding back out from under his shirt. He wondered whether they’d startled the horses…

“I _hate_ you,” Glenn gasped out between shaky breaths and a few leftover giggles.

“Liar.” There was sweat making Glenn’s hair stick to his skin, but that didn’t deter Miklan from continuing to kiss whatever parts of him he could reach.

Since his hand wasn’t occupied tickling Glenn into submission any longer, he used it to reach for Glenn’s, slotting their fingers together. It was a bit awkward, but the way their well-worn rings clinked together was more than enough proof that Glenn _was_ a liar.

“Awake now?” Still, that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy on him. He’d been pushing his luck for over a decade now, and he wasn’t about to stop any time soon.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, I think that’s your job.”

Glenn’s foot collided with Miklan’s shin and Miklan cursed loudly. If the horses weren’t spooked before, they _definitely_ were now.

Miklan was 29 years old, and he was free.

If someone had told 16 year old Miklan that one day he would be waking up every morning next to Glenn, without a single thought about Crests and inheritance and his future clouding his mind, he would have called you a liar. Probably after he punched you in your face for saying something like that and getting his hopes up.

Miklan had been in love with Glenn Fraldarius for more than half his life, and not once did he ever think he would end up like this.

They woke up and packed up their camp in record time, at least once Glenn had recovered from the impromptu tickle attack. Despite the _restless_ night they’d had, both of them were far too excited not to rush, and before long they were back on their horses and heading towards Garreg Mach Monastery.

Heading towards Sylvain and Felix.

They had split up from their mercenary band about a week ago, on realizing two things; how close their most recent job had brought them to Garreg Mach Monastery, and how close it was to Miklan’s birthday. Not that birthdays had mattered for a long time, but it just seemed… Right, almost.

Like a gift to himself.

They drew up on the village that surrounded the Monastery only hours later, the day still young, and Miklan was practically vibrating out of his skin. The small glances he took out of the corner of his eye at Glenn told him that he felt exactly the same, even though they hadn’t said a word to each other since entering the actual village…

Neither of them knew what to _say_.

It wasn’t that Miklan wasn’t happy with his life. Farthest thing from it. He still counted the day he and Glenn had set off with whatever pilfered gold they could carry and a couple of horses from the Fraldarius stables as the happiest day of his life. But were there some things he would probably do differently if given the chance? Well.

As they hitched their horses at the stable they had rented, Miklan looked up at the intimidating shadow the Monastery cast over the town that had been built up around it.

Garreg Mach Monastery, and within its walls, the Officer’s Academy.

It was weird for him to think about how, if his life had turned out differently, he would have probably ended up going to school there. If he hadn’t been born Crestless and unloved to parents who didn’t even know what love _was_ , and couldn’t even be bothered to fake it for him like they had for their second child, the one they could actually exploit, and even then they hadn’t faked it _well_.

Guilt shot inside of Miklan, a familiar feeling, and he stomped it down and shoved it somewhere to be dealt with later. That was why they were here, after all. To make amends, or at least try to.

12 years was a long time to be out of someone’s life and then suddenly reappear and ask for forgiveness, but it was worth a shot, right? What did they have to lose, except, you know, sleep and emotional stability?

A great birthday present to himself, all in all.

They continued on in absolute silence, which was starting to drive Miklan crazy but did give him plenty of time to think. Which was probably not what he really needed, but hey.

It was one thing for him to be alone with his thoughts when he was planning out a defense strategy to protect a village from a bandit raid, or when he was trying to figure out the best way to be the one _raiding_ a place, but being caught up in his own head thinking about his past choices and regrets? It was almost enough to make him say ‘nah, let’s just turn around and get out of here’ just so he didn’t have to spend a single second longer wallowing in regret.

He was never going to regret asking Glenn to run away with him, of course. If he didn’t? There was a good chance Glenn would have ended up dead by now. And if he _wasn’t_ , he’d be engaged to some brat his brother’s age.

(Not that he had anything against Ingrid. He didn’t really remember her that much, on account of the fact that she was _5 years old_ when he left home, but the fact that she was _5 years old_ was a good enough reason, since she obviously had no idea what was going on. But she was 12 years younger than him, and that made her a brat, in his mind.)

That didn’t mean he was free from regrets, though. He was happy. Flames, he’d never imagined being _able_ to be so happy, not when his old man had something to say about it. It had been 12 years since they’d left their old lives behind and some days Miklan still thought it was all just a dream he was going to wake up from at any moment. Glenn had made fun of him more than once for getting caught up staring at his wedding ring when he was supposed to be doing actual work, wondering how their mutual impulsive decision making when they were _teenagers_ had led them here.

But it wasn’t like he hadn’t given something up for that happiness. If that had been the case, well. Then he would have _really_ known he was dreaming. You couldn’t get something for nothing, and even though he was living his greatest fantasy…

Sylvain wasn’t in it.

That had been the hardest part. The _only_ hard part, if he was being honest. Leaving behind the rest of his family, his ancestral home, anything even remotely resembling the life he had always known? Easy. Done in a heartbeat. Never looked back.

Hugging your 7 year old brother, the one good thing that had ever come out of House Gautier, telling him you loved him while knowing that by morning you would be gone and would probably never see him again? That you were leaving him in the hands of the family that had been ready to toss you out from the moment they found out you weren’t born exactly the right way?

Even with the comfort of being able to spend his nights curled up with Glenn, knowing they were safe from the future their families and the rest of Faerghus wanted for them, he’d still had a lot of sleepless nights for those first few months. Hell, even more than a decade down the line, he was still occasionally kept up at night wondering if maybe he could have done things differently. Could he had taken Sylvain with him, to spare him growing up in that place? Could he have found some way to get a message to him, tell him that at least one person out there actually cared about him, without it falling into his father’s hands? He was sure Glenn felt exactly the same way about Felix, even though they didn’t talk about it.

The front gates of Garreg Mach Monastery loomed large. When they’d been planning this whole endeavour, he’d figured it would take some work to get in, so when they’d started almost mechanically heading for the monastery he told himself it was just going to be reconnaissance. After all, this was the seat of the predominant religion of _most_ of the continent, _and_ the school where the kids of all of the most important politicians of the entire damn place went; there was no way they’d let a couple of seedy mercenaries who hadn’t even stopped to bathe properly in a few days in just like that, right?

And then the gates had been wide open.

A lot of people from town were heading the same way, so he probably shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was. But logic didn’t really factor into it when you were looking for a reason to have another day or two or ten to figure out your game plan and maybe reconsider running away and wallowing in your own guilt for a while longer.

They walked straight through the gates of Garreg Mach Monastery without any trouble except for an extended Look from one of the knights, as if to say ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you’. Miklan was actually starting to wonder how any noble in their right mind would send their kids to school here if they would just let anyone walk right in, no questions asked. They were armed, for crying out loud!

It at least made a little more sense when they walked right into a market. People from the village and people wearing the uniform of either the church or the Officer’s Academy were all blended together, and there were knights keeping an eye on things all around the place.

“We should—”

He started to speak, but cut himself off when he saw Glenn jump out of the corner of his eye and look around, eyes wide, like he’d suddenly been startled awake. Miklan put a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked, softly, steering Glenn away from the bulk of the crowd and between two stalls, where they were more or less hidden among some stacked crates and barrels.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Yeah.”

Miklan would have already known that was a lie anyway, but the way Glenn pushed his hair back out of his face and blinked a lot, scrubbing at his eyes, told him it was a pretty _big_ lie. He wasn’t even completely sure Glenn knew where they were. He wanted to slap himself for being so caught up in his own head that he let it get that far, when he knew Glenn was just as nervous and freaked out by this whole thing as he was, and had never exactly been good at dealing with his emotions.

Not that Miklan was going to throw stones there. If anything, Miklan was just better at pushing them down and bottling them up to overwhelm him _later_. Priorities, and all.

“Hey.” He reached up and cupped Glenn’s face in his hands. “We don’t have to do this right now. We can come back later. We’re not on a schedule here.”

He was back in familiar territory, at least. Being caught up in his own head, nothing for company but his own thoughts, having to replay his regrets over and over again? Not exactly his ideal situation. But grounding Glenn, being there when things got to be too much for him, and sometimes (usually) offering to beat the shit out of whatever was upsetting him? Shit, as far as he was concerned, it was the job he’d been born to do.

He couldn’t beat up Glenn’s anxiety about abandoning his duty as a brother to run off in pursuit of his own happiness anymore than he could do the same to his own, but hey.

“No, I…” Glenn turned his face into one of his hands and Miklan felt him take a stuttering breath. He could see him starting to worry his lower lip with his teeth, and given how dry and cracked they were from how long they’d been on the road, it would probably get bloody pretty quick. Miklan gripped his jaw lightly but firmly so he couldn’t turn his head away when he turned him back to look at him.

“Hey, babe? Breathe.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Glenn didn’t put any venom behind that, and in fact laughed when he said it, a breathy sound that broke into giggles. Miklan grinned as he went from gripping Glenn’s jaw to pinching his cheeks.

“You’re such an asshole.”

Even if Miklan _was_ being an asshole (and he was only being a _little bit_ of an asshole, in his humble opinion), he knew Glenn didn’t really mean it. He was still laughing, for one. In fact he was laughing so hard, even though he was still just giggling softly (which was good because Miklan didn’t exactly want to draw attention to themselves, seeing as they were two filthy mercenaries having a clandestine meeting in an alley), that he had tears running down his face.

“I can do this,” Glenn said, turning his head again towards Miklan’s hand, but this time pressing his lips to Miklan’s palm in the way he knew would make him melt. “It’s just— a lot. You know. But I can handle it. I just needed a second.”

“Take all the seconds you need.”

Glenn laughed harder at that and swatted his hand away, turning to walk back out of the alley. Probably smart, before the stall owners started wondering what they were doing back there (and whether they were stealing).

“While we’re here we should try to replace that shitty bedroll,” Glenn said, looking back at him over his shoulder. “If I have to sleep in that ratty old thing one more time, I’m asking for a divorce. It’d almost be more comfortable to just sleep on the _ground_.”

The way he was talking, the way he was looking at him, all of it was pretty carefully crafted to make Glenn seem like he was okay, and it didn’t fool Miklan for a second. But then, it wasn’t supposed to.

The only person Glenn was trying to fool was himself. Fake it til you make it, right? The key to confidence was basically just pretending that you had it, and all sorts of other dumb things he’d told himself and Glenn and vice versa.

They had their shit a little more figured out now that they had a decade of experience behind them, but when they’d started out as a couple of runaway teenagers they’d pretty much needed that sort of unfounded confidence to get anywhere. And this? This was every bit as uncharted as being on their own with no family or fortune behind them had been back then.

Miklan was pretty fucking confident in his ability to swing an axe or command a battalion. But dealing with his own emotions? That he was a lot less sure about.

“Fine. If we’re gonna do that, though, you better get a new sword while we’re at it.”

“The fuck is wrong with my sword?!”

“The fuck _isn’t_ wrong with your sword? If I were fighting you I’d be more worried about getting tetanus than getting stabbed.”

He elbowed Glenn right in the ribs as they were walking out of the alley, completely ignoring the dirty looks he was getting from the man running one of the two stalls. What, did he think they were trying to steal the _rugs_ he was selling? Miklan laughed at the thought, and at the look Glenn was giving him, a glare that probably would have been pretty scary if he hadn’t seen Glenn look at day-old porridge and annoyingly deep puddles exactly the same way.

“Look,” he said, putting a hand between Glenn’s shoulder blades and giving him a friendly shove towards the stall at the end, which he spotted almost as soon as they came out of the alley. When you were constantly on the move, going from job to job and not settling down for any real length of time, you got good at spotting that sort of thing— especially when it was entirely possible you’d be run out of town at any moment.

“They have some right there. Just buy something to replace that rusty old piece of garbage already.”

Glenn elbowed him back, grinning almost maliciously as his bony elbow jabbed into the soft spot under Miklan’s ribs and made him wince.

“I can’t just _buy a sword_ ,” he said, the jabbing elbow turning into a long finger poking into the same sensitive spot just for the joy of seeing Miklan flinch and try to step out of his reach, even though he wasn’t trying very hard, because he much preferred walking with his arms slung over Glenn’s shoulder. “It has to be the _right_ sword. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even _know_ me.”

Miklan would have said something about how he probably knew Glenn better than _Glenn_ did (alongside a joke about the time Glenn had actually forgotten it was his own birthday until Miklan had given him his gift), but the words froze in his throat.

It took him a second longer than it should have, and even then it probably wouldn’t have clicked if not for the fact that the sound of his voice, or the sound of Glenn’s, made the person he was staring at look up from the swords he was browsing through (or, more accurately, from the way he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off the guy who was _actually_ browsing through the swords) and freeze at the sight of him with eyes as wide as saucers.

Eyes that were the same chocolate brown as Miklan’s, but set in a much prettier face ( _he always took after mom_ , the thought shot through his brain without his permission), under an unruly mop of red hair that only looked better than Miklan’s mane because he kept it cut short.

Glenn didn’t notice, at first, just like Miklan. He was too busy looking at the swords Miklan had pointed out to him, but when his hand tightened on Glenn’s shoulder, he looked up to see what was wrong, and Miklan _felt_ him tense up under his hand.

It was like time just… Stopped. Even though he knew that was stupid and he was kind of aware of the market moving around him, but all of that was just a blur. The only things that mattered were Glenn standing next to him, every muscle tensed like he was about to run away, and his own shaking hands, and standing in front of him,

Sylvain.

His body moved forward without his permission, stepping around Glenn so he could just… _Look_ at him. Take him in, for the first time in— in over a _decade_.

He’d wondered, more than once, what Sylvain would look like now, after so long. He’d been a cute kid, already had a lot going for him with big brown eyes and a killer smile, the sort that guaranteed he’d be breaking hearts all over the place even if he _didn’t_ have a Crest. He’d heard rumours of the same; not much, since most mercs didn’t bother gossiping about the children of nobles, but Sylvain apparently had quite the reputation as a heartbreaker.

It didn’t surprise him.

He’d thought, once or twice before, about going to see him. Back then that would have meant sneaking into Gautier territory, or risking showing his face at their family residence at Fhirdiad.

Both probably would have gotten him executed. His poor excuse for a so-called father would have delighted in having an excuse.

“Hey, Sylvie,” he said when he realized that he’d just been standing there, _staring_ at him, and that he should say _something_ , even if his voice cracked embarrassingly as he said his brother’s name _to him_ for the first time in over a _decade_. “Long time no see, huh?”

A couple of things happened all at once.

Miklan still had his hand on Glenn’s shoulder, which meant he _felt_ him take a sharp breath inwards more than heard it, an almost breathless gasp like someone had just doused him with freezing cold water.

Miklan couldn’t tell for sure whether it was his saying something, or Glenn’s gasp, or something else entirely, but in that same moment Felix— Goddess he looked like Glenn, Miklan would have recognized him a mile away— shrugged off the hand Sylvain was holding onto him with and shoved past him, disappearing at a near run into the market crowd and towards the Monastery proper.

“Felix—!”

Sylvain reached out to grab him, but Felix was already into the crowd and _gone_ before he could. Miklan felt Glenn step forward, then _stop_ , and heard another one of those sharp breaths.

“Just— let him go,” he said, although Miklan could _hear_ the pain in his voice. “This is… Probably a lot for him.”

Miklan didn’t know which bothered him more— the waver he could hear in Glenn’s voice, the _strain_ it took for him to say that—

Or the way Sylvain looked like he was considering following Felix’s example and just taking off.

No matter how much he knew he deserved it— the thought that Sylvain would want to _run away_ from him still _hurt_.

Then, as soon as the moment it, it passed. Once Felix was out of reach and Sylvain had apparently decided he wasn’t planning on following, the three of them were just left there staring at each other…

He wasn’t sure whether it was sympathy or embarrassment that made Sylvain rub the back of his neck and say,

“Maybe we should go somewhere more private?”

And Miklan didn’t know what else to say except,

“Lead the way.”


	3. glenn

And that was how Glenn Fraldarius, 27 years old, sellsword and vagabond, voluntarily disgraced son of House Fraldarius, found himself sitting in the dining hall of the illustrious Officer’s Academy of Garreg Mach Monastery.

In another life, he might have been recalling fond memories of evenings spent there laughing with classmates, complaining about schoolwork or just bonding together. His father had brought up his attending the Academy more than once, talking fondly about his time there with King Lambert and about how the practical experience they offered would help him in his journey into the knighthood.

And then he had run off, leaving his old life entirely behind and carrying nothing more than what he could carry in a saddlebag strapped to his stolen horse.

He stared down at the plate in front of him, pushing his food around with his fork. They had only just avoided the dinner rush, and though there were a few slow eaters lingering and looking at them oddly (they were most _certainly_ out of place), for the most part they were alone enough to offer privacy. Sylvain had sweet talked one of the servers into giving them meals, and though it was no doubt far better than anything he had eaten in recent memory, Glenn didn’t feel hungry at all.

Miklan and Sylvain hadn’t touched much of their food, either, so at least he didn’t feel quite so alone in that. They were all three sitting at a table shoved into a back corner, away from the other students and any other prying eyes, sitting in absolute silence and avoiding eye contact at all costs.

It was Sylvain who finally broke that.

“So,” he said, folding his arms across his chest in a way that was _clearly_ defensive even as his face was— stony, unreadable even. “It really _has_ been a long time, hasn’t it? More than ten years, I’d say. What brings you two here?”

He said it so casually, as though he was talking to a friend he hadn’t seen in a few weeks, instead of the brother he hadn’t seen for most of his life.

In a way, he was glad that Felix had run off. Because he wasn’t sure he could handle receiving the same sort of treatment that Miklan was getting.

Instinctively, he wanted to speak up. He wanted to rush to Miklan’s defense, especially seeing the coldness in Sylvain’s eyes behind his otherwise pleasant face, the sort of mask that Glenn had seen his parents wear a thousand times and had no desire to ever put on himself— something that you learned over time as a noble, to protect yourself and hide your real feelings.

Glenn wasn’t good at hiding his feelings, but these ones he pushed down until his hands were practically shaking with the effort.

Miklan would hardly thank him for yelling at his brother, after all. And no matter how much Glenn argued the opposite, he would say that he deserved it. That Sylvain was right to be angry with him for leaving him behind. He’d said as much before, and Glenn wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get him to see otherwise. Too much guilt, stewing for too many years. Glenn knew exactly how it felt.

So he held his urge to tell Sylvain to stop looking at Miklan like that, and occupied himself with a bite of food so he wouldn’t have to bite his lip instead.

He didn’t taste anything.

“...Job brought us close to the Monastery,” Miklan said, the first thing either of them had said since sitting down, and hearing his voice at least brought Glenn back to reality. It was comforting, familiar. Something he’d heard every day of his life for over a decade now, and was hoping to hear every day for many decades to come. “We heard you and Felix were here this year. Thought we’d stop by.”

He and Miklan had talked a lot about what they were going to say when they finally saw their brothers again. When they had first realized how _close_ they were, how able they were to just— just _go to them_ , there had been a raw excitement that neither of them could contain. A manic energy that had left them with a number of sleepless nights during their journey to Garreg Mach, where they would stay up late into the night, wrapped up in each other’s arms and just… Talking. About what they could remember about their brothers, what they were going to do and say…

If Miklan had suggested something like what he had just said, Glenn would have laughed until he choked, punched him in the arm, and told him to stop being such an awkward idiot.

Now, though? Faced with the gut rearranging reality of the situation? He was proud of Miklan for even being able to get out a full sentence instead of just… Sitting there, letting the panic and guilt and everything else overtake him, the way he was.

“Maybe next time you should write a letter. Just let me know you’re coming to visit. So it’s not such a… Surprise.”

Glenn set his fork down. Three bites in and he could feel his stomach churning, not caring about the food he had just put in, wanting to eat itself in hopes that could somehow settle even a fraction of what he was feeling.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way Felix had looked at him. For a few moments, they had just stared wide-eyed at each other, neither of them quite able to believe what they were seeing— and then when Miklan had stepped forward and spoken, the look in Felix’s eyes had changed from shock to…

To something much, much darker.

He didn’t want to say hatred. He wasn’t sure he could even handle the thought, but…

But he knew he would deserve it if Felix _did_ hate him, no matter how much he argued when Miklan said the same thing about himself and Sylvain.

Glenn expected Miklan to say something, but he lapsed back into silence. He wanted to reach out to him, to tell him it was okay, but…

Goddess, he really was terrible. He couldn’t even reach out his hand to his husband; he could only sit there feeding on his own negative thoughts, spiralling deeper and deeper into them…

“Well, this _has_ been fun,” Sylvain said suddenly, standing up abruptly. “We should do this again next year, bro. Make a tradition of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to be doing. See you around.”

“Sylvain—”

Miklan stood up and reached out like he was going to grab for Sylvain, but the younger Gautier was already gone, the only sign that he was affected at all being the fact that there was no way to disguise his pace as anything less than running away.

Glenn looked up at Miklan, watched the pain flash in his eyes that made Glenn’s heart ache even more than Felix’s reaction had. It was one thing to be rejected like that; it was another thing to watch his husband be, and watch the pain he went through as it happened.

His shoulders drooping in resignation, Miklan made to sit back down, but Glenn reached up and put a hand on his arm.

“Go,” he said, nodding in the direction Sylvain had gone.

“Glenn— What about—?”

“You can probably catch him if you’re fast enough,” he said, shaking his head as he cut him off. “I’ll be fine. This is your birthday, remember? Go.”

He tried his damndest to give him a reassuring smile, and whether he succeeded or not, Miklan gave him a watery look of absolute admiration and nodded, taking off after his brother at speed.

Well. At least there was _one_ thing he hadn’t fucked up that day.

Of course, the little rush he got from knowing he had done something right was immediately replaced by the realization that he was alone— not only with his own thoughts, but in a strange place where he was completely out of place with no accompaniment.

Considering the look the knight had given him and Miklan when they’d first entered the monastery, he had a feeling they _definitely_ wouldn’t care to find him wandering around _deeper_ in the school area, where he had such easy access to the students…

He wasn’t even hungry, even though he had gone too many nights over the course of ten years with an empty stomach because they had been either too short on funds for food or had run out while they were camping out in the middle of nowhere and thus felt bad wasting food. He was pretty sure throwing it up wasn’t going to do anyone any good either, though, and what few people were hanging around were starting to give him strange looks, as if to question who he was and why he was there…

Glenn would much rather deal with the guilt of wasting food than the consequences of _that_ , and so he got out of his seat and headed for the nearest door.

It was the same entrance Sylvain had brought them in through, which at least brought him away from the main part of the Academy and back towards the marketplace and the exit.

It was tempting to just… _Run_. Miklan would probably figure out he had left and would meet him at the inn in town, if only by process of elimination. Or maybe he could leave a message for him or something.

Funny to think that he’d been so excited at the thought of this visit when they had first realized how close they were to the Monastery, and the fact that their _brothers_ would _be there_. Of course, that was before he’d had a chance to really stop and think about the reality of the situation.

The fact that he had just sort of… _Abandoned_ Felix when he was still too young to understand what was going on, and it would be perfectly reasonable to expect him to hold a grudge about that and not actually be _happy_ to see him. Which was… Exactly what had happened.

Had his father even told Felix the truth? Felix was a smart kid, he was sure he would have figured it out on his own if he stopped to think about it, but…

Well, when you were in pain, you didn’t always stop to worry about logic or reason. And no matter how good his reasons ewere, it didn’t change the fact that Glenn had left.

Even if Rodrigue had told the Felix the truth from the get go, he wasn’t sure Felix would have felt any differently— wasn’t sure he would have _expected_ him to.

The idea of running away was appealing, but… No. He had done enough running away in his lifetime.

Not that he really thought Felix was just going to suddenly appear and decide to give him a second chance, and given how much he stuck out like a sore thumb, he wasn’t about to go exploring to try and find him. But he also didn’t want to run off on _Miklan_ , who was going through exactly the same thing as him.

For all he could be a hothead, Miklan was Glenn’s rock, and it was the least he could do to _try_ to return the favour.

Now he just had to walk the delicate line of making sure he was somewhere Miklan could find him without getting himself into trouble. Glenn was generally _alright_ at keeping himself out of trouble— it just so happened he was much better at getting himself _out_ of trouble after he had already managed to get _into_ it, and in this case he was pretty sure his usual methods for that wouldn’t be especially useful.

There was a lake in front of him, and off to his right there was what looked like a greenhouse judging by the glass roof and all of the plants around it. To his left was the direction they had come from, which would lead him back to the marketplace, which he thought was his best bet for somewhere he could wait for Miklan…

He started in that direction, but as reached the top of the stairs he spotted someone sitting on the edge of the dock leading out onto the lake.

Honestly, Glenn couldn’t say what it was about them that caught his attention. It was just someone sitting on a dock with a fishing rod. But in the post-dinner hours, there weren’t many students wandering around, and she wasn’t wearing the uniform he’d seen the students wearing or the armour of the Knights of Seiros— Was she a teacher?

She reeled in her empty line just as he was wondering if she was Felix’s teacher, or if she even knew his brother and could maybe help him— he really had no idea what life was like at Garreg Mach, or anything about Felix’s life… Well, _at all_.

He had thought about writing, but something had always held him back. Not the same things that held Miklan back— his father wasn’t the sort who would track him down and drag him back, and he _certainly_ wasn’t the monster that Margrave Gautier was, who he had no doubt would have pitched a fit if Miklan had made any attempt to contact Sylvain somewhere he could actually reach him.

No, what had held him back wasn’t practicality— it was pure cowardice.

Glenn descended the steps leading down from the dining hall and towards the lake, letting his feet guide him before he could stop to think too hard about it. The fishing woman wasn’t a student, and she wasn’t a Knight of Seiros; those were the most important facts at the moment, and worst case scenario he might actually be able to get some directions from someone who wouldn’t get him into trouble.

“Excuse me—”

He had just gotten to the edge of the dock when he called out to her, not wanting to startle her _or_ draw too much attention to himself, but when she turned to look at him just as she was getting to her feet—

Well, as embarrassed as he would have been to admit it if anyone else was around, she took his breath away.

She was beautiful, yes. That probably had something to do with it, although it wasn’t like he’d been living in a cave his whole life; he’d seen beautiful people before, although the way the setting sun was framed behind her gave her a sort of… _Ethereal_ look, divine almost, and he didn’t usually go around calling people _divine_ , especially when he hadn’t actually set foot in a church since his _wedding_ , and that had been out of necessity more than anything.

No, he was pretty sure the reason he froze up and couldn’t find his words after she turned to look at him was because of her _eyes_.

The way she looked at him made Glenn feel less like he was being looked at and more like he was being looked _through_.

“Can I help you?” she asked, and for a moment he legitimately forgot where he was and what he was doing.

Man, if she really was a teacher, he felt bad for her students— there was absolutely no way they ever got anything done.

“I’m hoping you can,” Glenn replied, thankful he at least hadn’t lost enough of his grasp of language to not reply, which would have made him look like a complete dumbass. “I’m a bit lost, hoping you could point me in the right direction.”

He didn’t even know what direction he was hoping to be pointed in; he knew Miklan had not come this way and wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt his time with Sylvain anyway, and how could he ask about Felix without looking incredibly suspicious? He was a mercenary in beaten up armour who most certainly didn’t look like he belonged there!

The woman tilted her head, looking at him with wide blue eyes that despite their size didn’t look innocent at all; in fact, Glenn got the distinct feeling that she was looking _through_ him more than she was looking _at_ him, and the way she was looking him up and down like she was measuring him up? Sent shivers down his spine.

She definitely wasn’t dressed like it now, but Glenn had been a merc for long enough to know someone in his trade when he saw one. She was looking at him like she expected him to draw a sword on her and was planning on exactly how she would stab him first to make it count.

Of course, he could have just been projecting. It was pretty hard to tell if she was feeling anything at all— she had a poker face he would have killed for. Her expression was so blank it was… Creepy, almost.

“Your name… It’s Glenn, isn’t it?”

He almost passed out.

There was no way she didn’t notice; he was pretty sure he was already pale and a little green in the face from _everything else_ that had happened so far, but he felt his heart jump up into his throat and then drop into the pit of his stomach when she said that.

Glenn was almost certain no one had actually been looking for him all these years. In fact, he was pretty sure the kindest thing his father had ever done for him was just… Let him go. He was one of the most powerful nobles in Faerghus; he could have devoted everything he had to finding Glenn after he had disappeared into the night, dogging his every step and making sure he and Miklan could never rest lest he be dragged back home, but he hadn’t.

Still, it was hard to suppress that urge to flee as soon as he was recognized, especially by someone who he had never seen before in his life and whose scar-covered body made it pretty fucking obvious that she was no ordinary teacher.

“...You have me at a loss,” Glenn said, finally, deciding that putting on a fake smile and pretending to be unaffected was probably the safe option. “That’s my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Byleth,” the woman offered without hesitation.

“A pleasure, Byleth,” he said, hoping that wouldn’t turn out to be a lie. “Mind if I ask how you know my name?”

“Ingrid told me that Felix has an older brother named Glenn,” she said, once again immediately. “You look uncannily like him. I just assumed.”

Glenn blinked a few times.

Okay. Perfectly reasonable explanation. If Ingrid was talking about him to some random stranger, that probably meant he was right about her teaching the Blue Lions; considering that he’d run off on their engagement (no matter that she was literally a child ten years younger than him, no matter that he’d never had any interest in marrying _any_ woman to carry on his family line, especially not one his brother’s age), he doubted she just wagged her tongue about him to anyone.

It also reminded him that, oh yeah, Felix and Sylvain were here, which of fucking _course_ meant Ingrid was there. Dimitri too, if King Lambert let him out of his sight after what had nearly happened to both of them.

The girl he’d left at the altar before she’d even understood that she was engaged to someone, and the boy who he should have pledged his life in the service of but had instead run off to sell his sword skills to the highest bidder, leaving him and his father to nearly get killed.

Yeah, knowing he might run into one of them made him even _less_ eager to wander around unaccompanied.

“Are you looking for Felix?”

He’d gotten so wrapped up in his own thoughts that for a moment he’d forgotten he was talking to someone, someone who was looking at him with those piercing eyes and with her head cocked to the side like a curious bird— or a hawk that was sighting prey.

Glenn had no idea why a tiny woman in a revealing outfit with massive eyes was so unsettling to him, but she _was_ , damnit.

“I— Yes, I am,” he said, before he could even figure out whether he was telling the truth or not. Honestly, it just sounded to him like the least suspect thing he could say.

After all, if he _wasn’t_ looking for Felix, what would he be _doing_ here?

At the very least, if she pointed him in his direction, he would be able to— say goodbye. Apologize for showing up so unexpectedly. _Something_ that would give Felix more closure than he’d given him when he had just up and disappeared from his life for more than a decade. It was the least he could do…

The woman nodded. “I think I know where he is,” she said, brushing past him, then pausing some ten feet away and looking back at him over her shoulder like she expected him to follow.

He had no idea what he really _could_ do except… Well, follow. After he had gone out of his way to talk to her and all. And even though he was pretty nervous when she started leading him towards the school part of the monastery, he at least felt like he wasn’t going to end up getting stopped by one of the knights…

He memorized the route she was taking him by in case he had to come back on his own, but she walked him in silence through an area that looked like the dorm rooms, with various students milling around with books or just chatting with each other; a few stopped what they were doing to say hello to his impromptu guide, most of them calling her ‘Professor’, which confirmed his suspicions.

Their destination was a huge set of double doors that she stopped in front of, opening it for him and standing back to let him move through.

Glenn stepped hesitantly through the door, and wasn’t surprised to find himself standing in a huge space lined with weapon racks, training dummies, and a wide packed-dirt floor arena for sparring.

He really should have known that he would find Felix at the training arena.

Which he was, of course, attacking a training dummy like it had personally insulted him, smacking it around with a training sword that should have been too dull to do any real damage when the students trained with each other— and yet, Felix was managing, at least against a straw effigy which Glenn severely _hoped_ was less sturdy than an actual human opponent.

Felix didn’t even look up when he heard someone enter the otherwise empty training arena, which set off every one of Glenn’s slapdash merc instincts, which told him not acknowledging someone coming up behind you while you were busy was a quick way to get stabbed— but he shoved it down because he was pretty sure giving him a _lecture_ was not gonna work out when he hadn’t even been able to look him in the face without turning heel and running off.

“Felix,” Byleth said, raising her hand as she stepped forward into Felix’s line of sight, but keeping out of his striking distance.

Probably a smart idea.

“Professor,” Felix said on the tail end of a grunt of exertion, following a particularly nasty swing that Glenn _knew_ hadn’t felt pleasant, even though Felix’s form was practically textbook— too aggressive, but Glenn wasn’t exactly one to throw stones in glass houses. “Did you finally decide to spar with me instead of wasting all your time with the boar? Maybe we can—”

And then he stopped because he finally actually looked away from his mangled training dummy, and the way the colour drained out of his face and his grip tightened on his sword made Glenn glad that they _had_ stayed back out of his strike range.

“Felix—”

“Why,” Felix said, cutting him off and inhaling sharply through his nose. “Is _he_ here?”

Byleth looked back at him, expression still placid, but with a certain sharpness in her gaze that made him think of the way he had felt when she first looked at him— like someone who she hadn’t yet made her mind up about killing, but was already figuring out what way would work best, just in case that was her final choice.

Glenn put his hands up immediately, in the universal gesture of ‘I’m not dangerous, please don’t kill me’. Byleth didn’t appear to be armed and Felix only had a training sword, but Glenn hadn’t survived as a mercenary in Fodlan for as long as he had by being _stupid_.

“He said he was looking for you,” Byleth replied, not looking away from Glenn while talking to Felix, which he too as a _bad sign_. “I can make him leave.”

“Felix, wait,” Glenn said, once again speaking before he had even thought about what he planned to say next. “I just want to talk. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave, but— that’s all I want. To just. Talk.”

The words felt like stones, clogging his throat and falling out of his mouth clumsily. He hadn’t exactly presented a compelling case, and he honestly expected Felix to tell him to go fuck himself and get out of his life forever.

He would have done it, too. As bad as he wanted to see Felix, to actually _know_ the brother he had left behind all those years ago, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt him. And if being around him was hurting him…

When Felix made a sound halfway between a snort and a sigh and turned away, though, Glenn felt hope and fear wrestling in his stomach. When Felix went to the weapon rack and took down a second training sword, both feelings paused their tussle to make way for confusion. And he practically laughed— out of a strange sense of relief, rather than humour— when Felix tossed the training sword to him.

“If you have the time to talk,” he said, walking towards the wide open area of the training arena that he’d guessed was reserved for sparring. “Then you have time to train. Professor, you be our referee.”

And then the fear reared its ugly head again, more subtly than before but still very much there, as Glenn realized he was about to have over a decade of abandonment issues handed to him at the end of a training sword.

Oh well. There were worse punishments. He had imagined a lot of them. And Glenn wouldn’t let anyone say he couldn’t handle a few bruises.

He would knock them out first.

So he swung the training sword at his side a few times to get a feel for its weight and balance, then followed Felix into the arena.

Glenn wasn’t always good with words, but fighting?

That he could do.


	4. sylvain

“Sylvain.”

He didn’t stop when he heard his name being called; if anything, he walked faster, especially when he heard the heavy footfalls following him.

He drew the line at running, though. Sylvain didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he was _afraid_ of him.

“Come on. Stop.”

He didn’t hear anything. He didn’t see anything, not even the students looking at him oddly and whispering amongst themselves as he speed-walked away from a man twice his size who looked startlingly similar to him.

No, it was just another ordinary day for Sylvain. He definitely wasn’t trying to run away from a man who he had thought as good as dead so he wouldn’t have to face the reality of the situation. Everything was totally and completely normal.

“Just talk to me. Please, Sylvie?”

Sylvain stopped dead in his tracks.

He half expected to feel a hand on his shoulder, but the heavy footfalls stopped behind him a split second after he stopped walking, like Miklan was scared to get any closer.

He almost laughed at the thought. What reason would _Miklan_ ever have to be scared of _him_?

Maybe he should have been, though. And wasn’t _that_ an interesting thought…

“Alright,” he said, and it really was pure willpower that kept his voice from cracking, that kept his eyes shimmering instead of spilling over into tears. “I’ve stopped. You want to talk? Let’s talk. For starters, we can talk about how you left me in the hands of that monster who calls himself our father for _twelve years_.”

Sylvain hadn’t even been paying attention to where he was going, had just walked out and kept walking, especially when he heard Miklan following. He took a chance to look around then, to see if there were any prying eyes or ears.

Not that Sylvain cared what people thought of him. He just knew nothing good would come of any of this getting back to his father. Though it had been years ago, the Margrave had hit him once just for asking where Miklan had gone and whether he was ever coming back, and then had made him keep it covered up with makeup so no one would see _exactly_ how he treated his so-called _precious_ Crest-bearing heir.

Would his father still try to hit him now, if he knew he’d been talking to Miklan? Probably. No matter that Sylvain was older and stronger now than he had been back then, not a simpering child crying for his brother in the middle of the night. The brother that had just left him behind without even saying goodbye.

His father was still bigger, and stronger, and that was all that mattered.

They were standing on one of the overlooks, where you could see the whole mountain range spread out in front of you. He’d taken a few girls on dates to similar places around the monastery, to watch the sunset or just admire the scenery, which had been a thinly-veiled ploy to make out on a bench in front of one of those beautiful sunsets. Of course, that had been before he figured out it was a _better_ idea to take his dates out on the town _away_ from the Monastery where he could dodge Ingrid and Dimitri, and any number of spoilsport knights.

They were alone there now.

Sylvain turned around to face Miklan with his hands folded behind his head in his usual carefree pose. Just carefree, good for nothing, doesn’t give a damn Sylvain.

“I’m sorry.”

That, though? There was no amount of play-acting that would keep _that_ from throwing him for a loop.

He recovered quickly, though. Sylvain had never been the kind to be won over by pretty words.

“You’re sorry, huh?” he said, chuckling and shaking his head. “Good to know, but ‘sorry’ doesn’t really cut it, Mik.”

He wasn’t sure why the old nickname tumbled out of his mouth so easily. Maybe it was hearing Miklan’s voice calling him ‘Sylvie’ again for the first time in so many years.

He also wasn’t sure why the sight of Miklan wincing made him feel… _Guilty_.

“I know,” Miklan said with a shake of his own head. “But you deserve to hear it anyway, cuz it’s the truth.”

Maybe the _weirdest_ thing, though, was that Sylvain believed him.

“...Alright,” he said. “Let’s hear it, then. Whatever magic words you have cooked up to make everything better.”

He migrated over to the bench as he spoke, sitting on one end with one leg folded over the other and one arm hanging over the back of the seat, holding his hands out as an invite for Miklan to say his piece.

Miklan sat down heavily on the other side of the bench. He looked… Tired. Even more tired than Sylvain had felt after all of those sleepless nights, and that was saying something. It was something deeper than that, something in the way he carried himself, in the way he dipped his head and rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes like he expected a headache coming on any second now.

“Guess being a mercenary isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”

He meant it as a barb, but it came out more genuine than he’d planned, because despite himself he was— _interested_.

It still made him sick to think about all of the nights he’d stayed up crying for his brother, but there were plenty of times he’d considered just packing up and leaving in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. And Miklan had actually _done it_.

If he didn’t get anything else out of this conversation, he at least wanted to know what it was like.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Miklan said with a tired laugh as he dragged his hand down his face and leaned back, one arm sprawled on the back of the bench like Sylvain’s. “Probably wouldn’t have ended up with such a pretty face herding goats or whatever, but there’s worse ways to live out there.”

“I _am_ definitely the pretty one,” Sylvain said, his eyes tracing over the big scar right across Miklan’s face, wondering how he had gotten it. His eyes wandered, though, to the hand that was sitting on the back of the bench, right in his view… “But I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore, do you?”

“Huh? Oh.” Miklan followed his eyes to the ring on his finger. “That’s… It’s a long story. One you probably already figured out bits and pieces of yourself, and some you probably heard from other people, but I want you to know the truth. They might not be the magic words you’re looking for, but I want you to hear the story from someone else other than that shithead Margrave.”

Sylvain _almost_ said that he didn’t have any reason to trust Miklan’s version of the story any more than his, but that was too much of a lie for even _him_ to spout; he could be as unforgiving and bitter and spiteful towards Miklan as he wanted, but saying he was as bad as Margrave Gautier was still too low a blow.

So instead he just sat back, got comfortable with his hands folded behind his head, and waited to hear the story Miklan was apparently so eager to tell him.

“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Miklan said, which was a good start, even if Sylvain hadn’t decided whether he believed him or not. “I’m not gonna say it was a totally spur of the moment decision, or that I wouldn’t go back and do the exact same thing again if I had the chance. I didn’t want to leave you behind, but sometimes there’s just— no good option.”

“Wow. Really selling your case there, Miklan.” Of course, it wasn’t anything Sylvain hadn’t thought about before. And it wasn’t flattering enough to be anything but the truth.

“I asked Glenn to run away with me,” Miklan continued, frowning in his general direction. “I couldn’t stand to spend every day waiting for the news that he’d been stabbed on some Goddess-forsaken battlefield. Or thinking about the fact that if he did manage to survive, he was gonna end up married off to some b— _kid_ younger than _you_ , just so they could pop out baby after baby until they got a matching set of each Crest.”

The sneer that crept onto Miklan’s face, combined with the nasty scar running down its length, made Sylvain shudder. He looked _scary_ , which wasn’t something he ever thought he’d be saying about his big brother— but then, he’d spent over half his life trying very hard not to think about his brother _at all_.

All he knew was that he was glad he wasn’t facing up against him on a battlefield.

“You were just a kid,” Miklan grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck, like _he_ was the frustrated one. “Not to mention the Margrave’s golden child.”

“Really, Miklan? Because the way I remember it, I was more like his golden _ticket_ — just something for him to use to prove he was a real noble.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, Mik, I don’t. Enlighten me, how about. Because so far you’ve done a pretty terrible job at convincing me that listening to you has been anything but a massive waste of my time.”

Goddess, he was starting to sound like Felix— but then, hadn’t he _earned_ a little bitterness?

“I _know_ it wasn’t any easier living with that piece of shit for you than it was for me,” Miklan said. “I don’t mean to say anything different, but I knew you’d at least be better off— like you say, you’re his golden ticket. He’d be fucked if anything happened to you. I knew he’d take care of you, at least as much as he needed to, to protect his _own_ hide if nothing else.”

Well— That, Sylvain couldn’t argue with. The Margrave had ‘disciplined’ him a few times, like when he’d had the _gall_ to ask where his older brother had gone, but he’d never been wanting for anything— except freedom and genuine love and affection from his parents, of course.

Until he secured a proper Crest-bearing heir to pass on the legacy of House Gautier, their so-called “father” couldn’t risk Sylvain going off and getting himself killed, ensuring the bloodline died out with him. He was surprised he’d even let him go off to the Academy, but he supposed even Margrave Gautier couldn’t get away with locking him up in his room until it was time for him to be married off to some noblewoman and start popping out babies.

“I won’t argue with you there,” Sylvain conceded, already feeling himself wavering— but steeling his resolve at the last moment. “And I get that you couldn’t bring me with you. I was just a kid, and the Margrave would have had your head on a pike for trying. But while we’re having honesty hour, I have two questions.”

Miklan lifted his head and looked at him expectantly.

“One,” he started. “If the whole point of this was to keep Glenn safe, why did you run off and become a _mercenary_ of all things? Isn’t that sort of… Counter intuitive, putting yourself in danger for coin constantly? Is that really any better than being a knight?”

He wasn’t trying to pick apart Miklan’s explanation or reasons; he was well past that point. He’d never doubted that Miklan had his reasons for leaving, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t known most of the things Miklan had told him already.

He just wanted to _know_. He _deserved_ to know.

“Of course it is,” Miklan said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Being a merc is dangerous, sure. But if some jackass tells me it’s my job to _die_ for him, I can tell him to fuck right off. And we’ve had a few close calls, but never anything we couldn’t handle— most of our job is babysitting caravans and paranoid nobles, or running bandits away from the villages they’re terrorizing.”

Sylvain nodded along with his explanation, and it was only about halfway through that he realized he hadn’t actually been listening to what Miklan was saying— he had just managed to lose himself listening to his voice.

Funny how that was what stuck with him. There were so many things he’d forgotten about his brother— twelve years was a long time, after all. But not the sound of his voice.

Maybe that was why the anger had drained out of him so quickly— why he found himself sitting there just listening to Miklan, when just a few minutes ago he’d been trying his absolute best to run away from him and ignore him completely.

Sylvain wasn’t about to give in that easily, though— not after over a decade of sleepless nights and crying and finally just giving up on ever seeing him again, only for him to pop back into his life _now_ , when he thought he had _finally_ gotten over it all, and when he would probably just end up disappearing from his life again after he satisfied whatever itch he had to apologize for disappearing in the first place.

He knew how things worked. How even people you cared about and who cared about you were fundamentally self-serving. People who were nothing but good and kind and helpful would get stepped on and trod into the ground until there was nothing left, after all. Sylvain couldn’t blame people for looking out for themselves; he had a small number of people he put above himself, but at the end of the day, he had to be on his own side when it came to everyone else.

So he wouldn’t blame Miklan for deciding to go back to fucking around the continent and enjoying his freedom with his _husband_ rather than putting himself in the Margrave’s warpath just to spend some time with his dumb little brother. And maybe, maybe seeing him again in the flesh would give him the closure he needed to actually move on, instead of just pretending like he had, as he’d clearly been doing if his sleepless nights recently were anything to go by.

He just— had to _know_. Had to know they were on the same page so he wouldn’t spend more sleepless nights _wondering_ , and had to know…

“Two,” he said, and cursed himself for the way his voice wavered even as he paused to try and get it to hold steady. “All those years… Why didn’t you say _anything_? For all I knew between the last day I saw you and today, you could have died in a ditch somewhere. Can you really blame me for being upset when I didn’t even know if you were _alive_ before today, and then all of a sudden you just… Appeared out of nowhere? Did you really think I was just going to forgive and forget so easily When I didn’t get so much as a ‘hey, Sylvain, I’m alive’ in the last _decade_?”

He tried to keep a grip on himself, tried not to let his emotions run away with him. He failed about two sentences in when he felt tears pricking at his eyes and heard his voice crack even _more_. He was _really_ glad he’d made sure they were alone; he already hated getting like this in front of Miklan, he didn’t want anyone _else_ seeing him getting all… _Worked up_.

He was supposed to be cool, sweet-talking, doesn’t care about anything Sylvain. A lot of girls might have liked seeing a guy who was in touch with his feelings, but he much preferred to keep his terrible reputation intact.

“...Damn that bastard to Hell.”

Sylvain had ended up looking at his feet, trying to keep himself from tearing up properly, or at least hiding it— but his head snapped up at that. He’d been expecting maybe an apology, or an awkward silence, but…

Well, _that_ managed to come as a surprise.

“Sylvain.” Miklan reached out and put his hand on his shoulder, looking him right in the eye. Part of Sylvain wanted to shrug his hand off or smack it away. He did neither of those things. Maybe it was the way Miklan was looking at him— serious and pleading at the same time— or maybe it was just that he liked the feeling of it, liked how it felt grounding… Reminded him of what it was like to have family that actually gave a shit, even if they had up and abandoned him the first chance they got (which was a pretty good indicator of how bad the rest of his family was if that was his benchmark)...

“Sylvain, look at me,” Miklan said, and Sylvain couldn’t help _but_ look at him. “I _tried_ , Sylvie. I swear to the Goddess and whatever else is listening that I _tried_. I sent letters, I paid off messengers, I even found a thief with big enough stones to take payment to try and break into the estate. I tried _everything_ once I realized that bastard Margrave would never let me just… _talk_ to you. I always figured none of them got through when you never sent word back, but… _Damn_ him.”

Miklan made a noise, something like a grumble, almost like a growl, and shook his head as he gripped Sylvain’s shoulder so hard it was almost hurting.

Sylvain didn’t want him to stop. Because the sudden realization crashed into him, and Miklan’s heavy hand on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him from being swept off by it.

He’d spent all this time— so many sleepless, crying nights— thinking that his big brother didn’t give a damn about him, that the only flesh-and-blood family he had who had ever actually cared about him as more than just a Crest and a name on the family tree that his father could proudly show off until he could find him a suitable wife and then send him off to die, _didn’t_.

He’d never begrudged Miklan his freedom, never begrudged him running off the first chance he got and never looking back. If it hadn’t been for Dimitri and Felix and Ingrid, he sure as Hell would have, the second the Margrave turned his back. And he wasn’t stupid enough to think that Miklan would be welcomed with open arms if he just randomly showed up again on their doorstep. Sylvain had only been a child at the time, but he could still clearly remember his father’s red hot rage when he heard the news, that his “failure of a first born” had run off into the night with the Fraldarius heir, a pair of stolen horses, and as much of the family fortune as they could carry.

Miklan had been formally disowned the next day, his name stricken completely from the family records except as a footnote. He hadn’t been a son of House Gautier for a long time. There was no way his father would let him ‘poison’ the mind of his heir, even though Sylvain’s mind had been poisoned a long time ago, Miklan or no Miklan.

In hindsight, it was so _obvious_. Of course his father would never let a whisper of Miklan get through to him. Maybe he thought he was ‘protecting’ him from Miklan, or maybe he had shed all pretenses and was only doing it out of spite, making the both of them suffer for Miklan not being able to put up with Faerghus’ bullshit politics and homophobia for one second longer. Sylvain had spent so long wondering why Miklan would just go off and forget about him, not even tell him he was okay, when the answer was staring him in the face all along—

“Look.”

Miklan’s voice pulled him even further back into reality, as his hand disappeared from his shoulder, but the loss of the contact left room for doubt to creep in. Sylvain had no idea what to believe, had no trouble believing that his father was a jackass who didn’t care about him at all— he already _knew_ that for a _fact—_ but was he really ready to just cave and believe Miklan so easily? It was getting harder and harder to hold onto that anger and betrayal that had made him so casually get up and walk away from Miklan and keep walking even when he tried to get him to stop, but was that his brain at work, or his heart, so desperate to have at least one family member who didn’t just see him as a trophy or a studhorse that he would believe whatever spoonfed tripe he was handed?

Then Miklan pulled his travelling bag into his lap and started rummaging through it. He cursed a few times, and Sylvain felt nostalgic for a half-remembered memory of his father’s attendant overhearing Miklan cursing loudly over a stubbed toe and reaming him out for using that kind of language in front of him.

(It sounded almost funny, but now that he was thinking about his father, about how ready he’d been to throw Miklan away the first chance he got, it made him wonder— Miklan had said he knew Sylvain would be better off with the Margrave than he had been…)

He pulled out a rough, wooden box that Sylvain could tell had been tossed around in his bag for a while, starting with the fact that Miklan was struggling with the latch because it had dented and had obviously been forced shut the last time.

When finally he managed to get it open, he handed it over to Sylvain. Inside was a pile of letters— some new, some old. Leafing through the pile he came to some that were almost completely yellow, and he was almost afraid to pull them out in case they ripped or tore or crumbled.

He pulled out the most recent one instead. The first thing he saw, at the very top, was his name written in a barely legible scrawl that was shaky like it had been written on an unstable surface. It was dated just over a week ago.

Sylvain’s hands were shaking before he even started reading the letter.

_Sylvain,_

_Glenn convinced me that we should go to Garreg Mach. Supposedly you and Felix are both there, not that I know where he heard that from. Our last job brought us close enough to the Monastery that it’s not even out of the way. I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. Even though thinking about it pretty much terrifies me._

_Will you even recognize me? Probably. I still look way more like our jackass father than I would like, and between the hair and the eyes, it’s not hard to tell that I used to be a Gautier. But I’m worried those might be the only way I’ll recognize_ you _. It’s been so long, and you were so young when I left. You’d be older now than I was the last time I saw you. Just thinking about it that way is pretty scary._

_I can’t wait to see you, even so, but I know it’ll be a miracle if you welcome me with open arms after so long. I know I wouldn’t. Still, even if I only see you for long enough for you to tell me that you hate me and never want to see me again, it’ll have been worth it just to see you again at all._

_Miklan_

It was short, simple, to the point— every bit the Miklan he remembered.

Sylvain only realized he was crying when one of his tears rolled down his face, and landed directly on the page.

“I stopped sending ‘em when I realized the old man was never gonna let you see any of them,” Miklan said, and although his eyes were glued to the page— reading the words over and over again to let them really sink in— Sylvain could see over it that he was sitting with his elbows on his knees and folded forward, staring at the ground with his thumbs pressed against his forehead. “But even knowing you were probably never gonna read ‘em, I couldn’t stop writing. It was kinda like keeping a journal, I guess. Never thought you’d actually see any of them, but… You deserve to, even if they’re pretty embarrassing.”

Sylvain reached for the next letter and unfolded it, reaching for it like a starving man reached for a feast.

_Sylvain,_

_It’s your birthday today. I know it’s always a full year between when I write that, but it never feels that long. I cringe every time I think about it, about how long it’s been since I last saw you._

_You’re turning nineteen, which means soon you won’t be a teenager anymore. I’d say you’re an adult now, but people have been probably treating you like one for a while now. Not that that’s a good thing. Faerghus is just about the only place I’ve seen that teaches kids how to hold a sword before it teaches them how to read, and sends them off to fight in battles and wars before they even send them off to school. Fodlan in general is a huge fucking mess, but nowhere shows it off better or more proudly than Faerghus._

_I hope you know that’s why I left. You were so little back then, and I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye, since I couldn’t risk the old man catching on to our plan. He probably would have had me locked up or even executed for conspiracy, or worse. Pretty sure that as far as most of Faerghus is concerned, I kidnapped a Crest-bearing heir with a blade to his throat. We were lucky enough that Rodrigue didn’t send an entire damn army after us._

_I know the Margrave always wanted you to hate me, though. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he made you think I left because I didn’t care about you, or if you started thinking that all on your own. I hope by now you see how much of a morally bankrupt shithole Faerghus is and realize that whatever they say about me and why I left, the real reason was to get away from all of that, and to protect someone I cared about. Sometimes I even wonder if maybe I could take you away, bring you with us so you’d be away from that monster and all those damn expectations. Then I remember that the Margrave would hunt us down to the ends of the earth. But it’s a nice thought._

_Happy birthday, Sylvie. I hope it’s a good one._

_Miklan_

He was shaking and tearing up so badly by the end of it that he could hardly read the words on the page; it was only sheer willpower that kept him reading to the very end, even through the fog of tears…

It was when he sucked in a breath that hitched in the middle that Miklan finally looked up, and Sylvain was so overwhelmed that he couldn’t stop himself from barking out a laugh at the almost horrified look on his face.

“Sylvain? Sylvie?” Miklan hesitated reaching out towards him, like he was afraid to touch him. “Are you— alright?”

Sylvain didn’t actually know the answer to that question, but he nodded anyway, in part because he couldn’t trust himself to _say_ anything without getting choked up. He carefully folded the letter and put it back in the box, letting the awkwardly fitting lid close as much as it could, and reached up to rub the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“N-never took you for a letter writing sort of guy, Mik,” he said as he sniffed back the worst of his tears, and he was proud of the fact that his voice _barely_ hitched or wavered…

Obviously Miklan had decided that touching was okay, because his hand came back down onto Sylvain’s shoulder, and Sylvain instantly let all of the tension flow out of him until he was practically slumped in his seat.

Miklan hadn’t abandoned him. Miklan _loved_ him. He still had family left that gave a shit about him as more than just a walking, talking Crest. He hadn’t even known how desperately he needed that until that very moment, and now that he had it, it was like realizing someone had been holding you underwater and getting to take a breath for the first time. He’d had his friends, of course, who he loved like they _were_ family— no, as _more_ than family, probably, but.

But.

Sylvain slid forward on the bench so there was hardly any space between him and Miklan anymore, and let his slump carry him forwards, so his head was resting on Miklan’s shoulder. He let his eyes slide shut, just… _Absorbing_ the feeling for a moment, and felt Miklan tense under him, sensed rather than saw his hand hovering over him like he wasn’t sure what was out of bounds, until finally it came down between his shoulders to give him a firm, comforting pat.

“I’m here, Sylvain,” he said, which nearly started Sylvain crying _again_ , hearing his _brother_ say that to him after _so long_.

“Don’t leave,” he said immediately, before his brain even had a say in the matter, and he felt Miklan tense up under him again. It was a stupid thing for him to say— Miklan had a life, had a _husband_ who had given up everything for him, and who he gave up everything for in return, and if his father got wind of Miklan being anywhere near Sylvain he was sure there would be Hell to pay, just like Miklan had said. He couldn’t ask him to put himself and Glenn in danger like that just because of him—

“I won’t,” Miklan replied, that hand on his back turning into two arms pulling him into a crushing hug, the sort that made it hard for Sylvain to breathe. “Never again, kiddo. No matter what.”

And even though Sylvain had never been the type for pretty words, and knew _exactly_ how much of a lie that had to be, Miklan sounded so completely raw and sincere that he had no choice but to believe him.


	5. felix

When Sylvain talked about Felix always running to him after losing a fight with Glenn, he usually either got a smack or a kick to the shin for his trouble, or else Felix would walk off, depending on what sort of mood he was in and whether there was anyone else around for Sylvain to babble his embarrassing nonsense at.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t _true_ , though.

It wasn’t like Felix was embarrassed by it— well, maybe the running crying to Sylvain part, but he had been _five_ at the time, so it was only to be expected that he wasn’t as strong or as emotionally stable as he was now. And Glenn was a lot older than him, so losing to him, while upsetting at the time, was only expected. An untrained child couldn’t win against someone twice his size who had been training longer than they had been alive, even if he hadn’t known that when he was five.

And then Glenn had left.

Felix had cried a lot then, too. It was only natural to cry when you lost your brother, right? He had been too young to really understand what was happening— why Glenn wasn’t there, why his father was so sad. All he knew was that at some point he realized that the reason Rodrigue was so sad was because Glenn wasn’t coming home.

Felix didn’t stop crying for a very long time— and then one day he stopped crying, and then didn’t start again.

As he got older, he started to understand why Glenn had left— he only cursed him for leaving him behind, unable to do the same. One Fraldarius heir disappearing into the night had the Kingdom in an uproar. They would never stand for two. So Felix got to stay behind and play the role of the perfect noble son of House Fraldarius, watching their father go from falling to pieces blaming himself over Glenn running away to pretending absolutely nothing was wrong as if he was _fooling_ anyone, throwing himself into his work and his devotion to King Lambert even more than he already had as if he had to forget about _both_ of his sons to dull the pain of losing one of them—

All while Glenn got to galavant across Fodlan, free as a bird.

No, Felix had _refused_. He was _not_ about to lay down and become the perfect little Fraldarius heir that Glenn had seemingly convinced everyone he was, right up until he ran away, to the point that there were _still_ people delusional enough and with their heads shoved far enough up their own asses to think that Miklan Gautier somehow deserved the blame for taking Glenn away, like he’d been _kidnapped_ instead of just being a good enough actor to fool all of them…

Felix had been one of those people a long time ago, but once he realized just how much idiocy Glenn had to put up with, from _everyone_ , the truth had become obvious. Glenn hadn’t been coerced or tricked or carried off into the night kicking and screaming; Glenn had just gotten smart, realized things were never going to get better, and taken off.

It was commendable, really. Braver than any of them had been, Ingrid still beholden to her father’s search to marry her off, Dimitri in constant anxiety over taking over the crown from _his_ father— soon, likely, since the attempted assassination had left him barely physically fit to rule— and Sylvain? Well, his whoring around was one thing, but Felix was sure that when his father finally figured out which minor noble was willing to pay the most through the nose to get a Crest baby to their daughter’s name, Sylvain would end up rolling over and going along with the stupid arranged marriage even as he hated every second of it. Glenn at least had the stones to toss as many valuables into a saddle bag as he could and take off. He could respect that.

It didn’t mean Felix hated him for it any less.

Felix wasn’t a snot-nosed _child_ anymore, either, and he had been training hard for all the years that Glenn had been gone. He had no reason to think Glenn had been sitting on his ass all that time— he could tell based on the well-worn armour he was wearing, not to mention the rumours and context clues, that he had been working as a mercenary all that time— but while he had been swinging his sword for survival, Felix had the luxury of being able to focus on technique and hard training without worrying about working for his next meal.

So there was at least one benefit to being the next Duke Fraldarius, he supposed.

He had pushed himself to his limit, throwing every ounce of that grief and rage and hatred he felt towards his brother into being _better_ than him in the one way that really mattered— not politics, not the stupid _knighthood_ , not even being their father’s favourite son, but into being the stronger fighter, the better swordsman, the one who would be left standing at the end of a fight.

And now? Now he had a chance to put all of that training to the test, not against an almost pitiable training dummy or against his old friends or whatever lackluster opponents the professor could dredge up for him to clash blades with.

Here was Glenn, right in front of him. Asking— no, _begging_ Felix to listen to whatever sob story he had to tell.

Well, if he wanted Felix’s time and attention, he was going to have to _earn_ it.

It was at least to Glenn’s credit that when Felix tossed him a training sword and challenged him to a spar, Glenn didn’t argue, just tested the weight and balance of the sword before following him to the rough dirt circle that served as their arena.

“What are the terms?” Glenn asked, looking around like he was mentally mapping the training arena— not that there was anything _too_ map, other than the boundaries of the walls.

“You’re a mercenary,” Felix snorted. “Do you and your enemies on the battlefield set ‘terms’ before you begin?”

“This isn’t a battlefield,” Glenn said. “And you’re not my enemy. So unless you’re telling me you want a fight to the death…”

“We fight until one of us submits,” he said with a glare in Glenn’s direction, setting himself up on the opposite side of the arena. “Or until one of us is too exhausted to continue— or unconscious. The professor will make the call.”

He looked to Byleth, who nodded back, her expression as stony and unreadable as ever— Jeralt seemed to be the only one who could ever read her face. She had taken up her usual position on the sidelines, the same one she took when she watched the Blue Lions spar together during training exercises, or when she was asked to oversee the Academy’s monthly tournaments.

“I accept those terms,” Glenn said, and Felix sneered at how ridiculously formal he sounded. You could take the man out of the nobility…

“Ready,” she called, raising her hand, and Glenn fell into a ready stance Felix didn’t recognize, Felix settling into his own like slipping into a bath at the end of a long, harsh day— warm and comfortingly familiar.

Felix wasn’t good at feelings— mostly. Sometimes he was _too_ good at feelings, but that had its own problems. Either way, feelings were hard, but fighting?

Fighting was easy.

“Begin!”

Byleth’s hand hadn’t even finished the arc of its downward swing to signify the start of the match, and already Felix was off, covering the distance between himself and Glenn in two strides and a sweep, aiming for Glenn’s legs— aiming to knock him off balance, send him to the floor, and disarm him for a quick and easy victory.

It didn’t happen that way, of course. And Felix was glad for that. He would have been disappointed if it was _that_ easy.

Glenn’s sword fell in the way of his sweep, the wood clattering together with a dull _thud_ , and Felix almost wished they were using real blades just so he could hear the satisfying ring of steel against steel.

Glenn tried to twist his blade in hopes of forcing Felix’s right out of his hands, but just as fast as Felix had gotten into Glenn’s range, he was back out of it. That had always been his greatest strength— his speed, his mobility. It didn’t matter if people were stronger than him, physically, if he could get in and hit them, then be back out before they could strike him back.

Of course, that was a trick that he had learned from— Glenn.

He had a split second’s advantage, but the moment he pulled off the offensive, Glenn was on him. Even though it had been more than a decade, Felix would recognize his footwork anywhere. The way he moved almost looked like dancing— his father hadn’t been able to replicate it when teaching him, and none of his other instructors had ever moved like that. Felix had tried to teach himself based on memory, but it was a poor copy— so instead he had taken what he _could_ remember clearly, or piece together from context (and trial and error), and adapted it to suit his own needs.

He’d been in awe of the way Glenn could move, when he was a child. Now it was coming back to bite him in the ass, because Glenn was not only every bit as fast as he was, he was light-footed and moving around in ways Felix couldn’t without ending up flat on his ass. His testing strike hadn’t fazed Glenn in the slightest; it was as though Felix had never gone on the offensive at all, for all the good it had done him.

Of course, he wasn’t going to give up so easily. He’d been training for this most of his life, and while he had quickly lost the upper hand (if he’d even had it to begin with), it hadn’t been a pointless move…

Glenn’s quick strikes, still staying defensive even as he pushed Felix aggressively back to the other end of the arena, weren’t intended to harm. Felix wasn’t even sure they were intended to _land_. Even an amateur could tell that Glenn was being exceedingly careful not to leave himself open to any counter attacks, at the expense of not being able to deliver any punishing blows even as he went on the attack.

Felix wasn’t an amateur, though; he could tell Glenn’s _real_ motives were to get a taste for how he wielded a blade, and tempt him into making another aggressive move that might end up costing him dearly. It was almost like he was _testing_ him, and even though that thought alone was enough to piss Felix off— how dare he think he have the right when he’d been _gone_ all those years Felix was training so hard to surpass him— he kept his cool and focused on parrying Glenn’s pathetic blows and standing his ground. If he allowed him to keep pushing him back like that, he was going to end up backed against a wall, with nowhere to go…

Glenn, obviously picking up on the fact that Felix was deadset and determined not to go _anywhere_ , feinted back with that same dancer’s footwork and lunged forward for a more aggressive, direct strike. When Felix blocked it, the force of Glenn’s blade striking his reverberated up his arm, making his jaw clench; if Glenn had been aiming for an arm or a leg and he hadn’t been able to block in time, training sword or no, it could have very possibly ended with something broken, and even if it didn’t Felix would surely be sore the next day from a strike like that…

Well. If that was how he wanted to do this, Felix was more than happy to work out a decade worth of aggression on him.

He pushed Glenn’s blade back with enough effort that he felt the exertion in his muscles, like trying to lift a box that was too heavy for him; Glenn danced backwards, spinning his sword back into a defensive position, but Felix didn’t give him the opportunity. He was already leaping forward to strike at him, aiming directly for his sword arm.

Glenn deflected the strike, but he clearly hadn’t been expecting as much force behind it as Felix had put; that fancy footwork of his didn’t leave him much grip, since it was much more well suited to out-speeding an opponent to get in close and finish them off before they could do anything about it than it was for an all-out brawl.

Felix _could_ have gotten embarrassed about how much more real-world experience Glenn had on the field of battle, but instead he used it to his advantage; despite his earlier formality and Felix’s complaints that he was acting more like a noble than a mercenary, Glenn’s style was ill-suited to a fight where the intention _wasn’t_ to kill your opponent. They way he pushed forward but kept himself defensive, like he didn’t want to let a single blow through, spoke to that; in a _real_ battle, a single blow could be devastating. It was safer to rely on speed and maneuverability than raw power at the expense of defense, especially when you had to deal with multiple attackers. Felix knew that well enough himself, now; the professor had drilled it into him, as if he didn’t already know.

If Felix gave up his own defenses for an all-out offensive _here_ , though— well, he could end up pretty sore, but he could handle a few bruises. Like Glenn had said, this wasn’t a fight to the death; this was two men in a dirt circle swinging polished pieces of wood at each other until one of them fell down. He could afford to be a little sloppier, a little less concerned about taking blows, especially since he knew he was good at powering through pain.

It might not have been good form, but if Glenn didn’t like it, to Hell with him. He wasn’t allowed to criticize Felix’s life, as far as he was concerned. If he wanted to do something like that, he should have stuck around to be a _real_ brother.

Glenn might have been able to block him, but it threw him completely off balance, and while he was reeling and trying to regain his footing, Felix pressed in even closer with another strike. This one landed— the first blow either of them had landed, and a brutal one right to his target, Glenn’s sword arm.

Glenn grunted and his muscle spasmed, making his grip loosen and his sword fall to the dirt before he could do anything about it. Felix probably hadn’t done more than leaving a bruise, and since he’d landed it with the flat of his blade it wouldn’t have done a lot of damage even if they’d been using real swords, but it did exactly what he’d wanted it to do; disarmed Glenn.

He winced but recovered nicely, or as nicely as could be expected, pulling his arm in close to his side and ducking away from Felix. He tried to roll and Felix saw him going for the dropped sword, but he was already there, sacrificing some of his stability to kick it away as he lunged forward into Glenn, plowing his head straight into his chest.

Felix heard Glenn let out a deep grunt, and a rush of air followed shortly as Felix’s strike knocked the breath right out of him. He felt Glenn going down, knocked completely off balance, and Felix followed him down with his full weight.

He got his arms up between them, gripping his training sword with both hands and pressing it across Glenn’s chest and shoulders as he landed hard on the ground. The moment Glenn spent dazed was more than enough for Felix to straddle him and continue to apply pressure, his palm pressed against the flat of the wooden blade while he held the grip with white knuckles. It was too low for him to choke Glenn, and the even distribution of weight meant he couldn’t apply enough direct pressure to worry about breaking anything, but it kept him where Felix wanted him— on the ground.

“Give up,” he growled, and even he was surprised by the sound of his own voice— throaty and feral, sounding more animal than human.

He’d always called Dimitri a boar, a wild animal, but maybe he was projecting— just a little.

Glenn grunted, Felix feeling his chest rising and falling as he tried to regain the wind Felix had knocked out of him, and for a split second he expected it to be over— either because Glenn tapped out, or because Byleth called it to stop things from going any further.

Then, suddenly, Felix was on his back.

It hadn’t been a hit, really; the only reason he hesitated was because of his surprise. Somehow Glenn had managed to gain leverage despite being _pinned to the ground_ and had hooked an ankle around him to flip them, so now Felix was on the ground— but Glenn had taken a gamble and, instead of trying to pin Felix, had decided to go for his discarded weapon.

He should have hit him. At least once.

As it stood, Felix didn’t have to waste any time recovering from anything but shock, and so he pushed himself up into a half kneel, half squat and lunged for Glenn.

The only thing on Felix’s mind was keeping him from getting his weapon. He’d had the advantage against Glenn because Glenn was still thinking like a mercenary, even during a spar, and Felix had managed to think around that. He wouldn’t have that advantage a second time, and he wasn’t stupid.

Just because he had been training for ten years didn’t mean he was stronger, or a better fighter. He hadn’t _known_ Glenn was a sellsword, but he’d always assumed. His brother wasn’t the sort to disappear and run off to tend sheep or something. And he hadn’t exactly asked him yet, but the beaten up armour and weapon were a dead giveaway. He had more practical experience than Felix.

But Felix wasn’t out to prove that he was necessarily the better fighter; he just wanted to prove he could beat Glenn in a fight. To do what the little boy that had always gone crying to Sylvain because his brother beat him, not understanding how unrealistic any other outcome was, until suddenly there was nothing around to cry about anymore, had never been able to do.

To that end, he tucked his sword into his armpit. The professor would probably be on him about form, about how he’d never be able to do this in a real battle, but to Hell with it. He was beyond the point of caring about anything other than _winning_. And in this case, winning meant keeping Glenn from getting a hand on his weapon again. After seeing his swordplay in action, Felix knew he had better form and technique, but it still couldn’t match up with Glenn’s battlefield experience— just like how it couldn’t match up against Professor Byleth.

Of course, just like he’d told Glenn, a real battlefield didn’t have any of those pesky _rules_. You did whatever you had to in order to defeat your enemies and _survive_. So if he was going to beat Glenn on his own terms, that meant he was going to have to fight like Glenn fought— and use every advantage he could find.

He didn’t really care about fighting dirty. Honour was for knights, and Felix wasn’t any more interested in being one than Glenn had been.

Glenn stumbled when Felix, with his sword tucked under his arm, grabbed his legs. He kicked out to try and free himself, but Felix kept a firm hold, his arm pressed tightly against the back of Glenn’s knees to keep him from regaining that leverage, and he practically felt the air rush out of Glenn when he was once again forced suddenly to the ground.

This? _This_ was what Felix had wanted. He was almost certainly going to get an earful from Byleth— he could practically picture the slight furrowing of her brow and the small frown that would be on her otherwise unreadable face, even though he was definitely not taking his eyes away from Glenn to see if that was the case. But it didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered was flipping Glenn over onto his back while still keeping control, shifting from using his arm to pin his knees to using his full weight as he moved up Glenn’s body. He’d gotten away from him once— he wasn’t about to let him do it again.

“Give _up_ ,” he repeated in that same harsh growl as before, but he didn’t care anymore.

He was going to _win_. Nothing else mattered.

He didn’t go for the same move he had last time; he knew better. Rather than pressing his sword flat across Glenn’s _chest_ , he pressed it against his throat, applying barely any pressure— but when Glenn didn’t immediately submit…

“Felix—”

“Give up, Glenn,” he said again. “Admit it, I’ve won.”

Then, Glenn looked up at him with a look in his eye— not one of defeat, but some other kind of regret.

“Would that make you happy?”

Felix felt something inside of him _snap_.

His sword, and the threat intended to make Glenn admit defeat, were quickly forgotten. He tossed the damn thing clear across the arena— and at almost the same moment his fist collided firmly with Glenn’s nose.

Glenn’s head snapped back and Felix heard something go _crunch_ — his nose, if he had to guess, because when he lifted his head back up there was blood streaming from it, and it wasn’t exactly the same shape as before Felix had punched him. He didn’t feel guilty about it, and he didn’t have a _chance_ to; before he knew it, Glenn had stopped clutching his bloody nose and had reached up to grab Felix by the front of his shirt to try and flip them back over.

Felix wasn’t having it; he planted his knees firmly on either side of Glenn, sat his full weight on him, and aimed a punch for his solar plexus. There wasn’t even a grunt this time, just a sudden rush of air. He wondered, idly, how many times he would have to knock the wind out of Glenn before he stopped being able to come back from it so easily.

“You _bastard_ ,” he growled. “How _dare_ you—”

He raised his fist to strike again as Glenn wheezed, trying to regain his breath, but he felt someone grab his wrist. He immediately started to struggle, kicking out a leg to try and strike whoever it was, but he was promptly hauled off of Glenn and to his feet.

“What are you—” He froze when he realized it was Byleth who had taken hold of him. She grabbed him by the other arm and hauled him back by both, out of the arena.

“Felix,” she said firmly, in her best ‘don’t fuck with me right now’ voice, the one that got every person in his class to drop everything and do whatever she said— even _he_ stopped struggling and let her pull him back when he heard the tone of her voice. “That’s enough.”

“Professor—!”

“That’s _enough_.”

Felix twisted his head to argue, but the look in her eyes froze the blood in his veins.

He had seen her on the battlefield; he _knew_ why they called her the Ashen Demon. But seeing it up close was an entirely different experience.

From his place on the ground, Glenn hissed through his teeth— a pained noise that drew Felix’s attention immediately. And he didn’t think it was possible to freeze even more at the sight than he had at the look in Byleth’s eyes, but he suddenly felt like he had been turned completely to ice.

Glenn had rolled over onto his side and curled in on himself, one hand clutching his stomach, his breath hissing and wheezing as he struggled to regain it completely. There was blood streaked down his face where it was still gushing from his nose, and a big chunk of his face was already starting to turn an ugly blue-purple colour and had started to swell.

His brother— who he had spent weeks, months, _years_ wanting nothing more than for him to come home, even if he would never say it out loud— laying on the ground, bleeding, _hurt_. And he had been the one who had done it.

It felt like the bottom of his stomach fell out.

Glenn had left him— Glenn had run off in the middle of the night with Miklan and had never looked back. Felix had no idea what had happened to him. He’d never heard from him, not once, hadn’t even known he was _alive_ until he had looked up from a row of swords and he’d been _there_ , in the flesh, staring back at him like he was just as surprised to see _him_ when he had been the one to show up out of the blue at his _fucking school_. And then he had tracked him down and said he’d wanted to— to _talk_ , as if Felix fucking owed him a chance to _explain_ himself, as if he didn’t understand perfectly well.

Glenn had valued his freedom more than he had loved him. Simple.

He had _deserved_ it— to get knocked off his high horse, and more importantly, the fucking pedastal everyone seemed intent on putting him on. Dimitri insisting that Glenn _must_ have had a good reason for doing what he did and _surely_ any day now he would turn up and explain himself and everything would be wonderful and happy again, his father staring _constantly_ at the Goddess damned letter Glenn had sent officially resigning his position as the next heir of House Fraldarius, the last thing he had ever said to any of them before running off never to be seen again, not even explaining why he had left— 

(Of course, Felix knew now. He’d been able to take a wild guess a long time ago, and seeing Glenn and Miklan at the market together, seeing the ring on his finger— everything made perfect sense. He’d always thought his father was pretty thick not to have figured it out. Then again, Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius had always been more interested in blaming himself for everything than actually searching for a real solution…)

So, yes. He’d deserved it. And it was nothing he wouldn’t recover from.

Felix still felt guilty. And then he felt angry about the fact that he felt guilty. And then he was too many levels deep to really know how he felt or how he was _supposed_ to feel, and he had no idea how to deal with it anyway, and the training grounds were supposed to be the place he could go to _escape_ all of the stupid, complicated feelings he had about everything but now they had _followed_ him there—

He did the only thing he could think to do; he shrugged Byleth’s hand off and went straight for the door.

He didn’t stop to see if either of them were following him. He didn’t care.

Just like he didn’t care about the hot tears that were prickling at the corners of his eyes. Because they weren’t there.


	6. glenn

As Glenn forced himself to sit up, nevermind how the room was spinning, he was aware of a few things all at once.

One, it was hard to breathe. That was probably due to the fact that he’d just been punched in the stomach, and it was probably why he had stars dancing in his vision. Either that or the punch to the face had been worse than he’d thought, but Glenn had been concussed plenty of times in his life and this didn’t feel like that, so he was safe. He was _mostly_ sure about that.

Two, there was a hand on his back that he was suddenly realizing probably had something to do with him getting into a sitting position in the first place, and whoever was attached to that hand was pouring healing magic into him; he could feel the familiar heat between his shoulders, radiating through the rest of his body.

Three, Felix was gone.

He tried to focus on one and two, because they were objectively more important, but all he could think about— all he cared about— was three.

He’d driven Felix away. Again. Asking him if it would make him happy— he had known that was a stupid idea the moment it left his mouth but it had been too late to stop it.

Of _course_ it wouldn’t make him happy for him to give up. He wouldn’t have challenged him to a fight if all he wanted was for him to roll over and let him win. Even when he was a little kid, he hated to lose, and was desperate to prove himself; even though there was no way he ever could have won against Glenn in a sword fight (he was barely big enough to even _hold a sword_ , for starters) he always ended up crying over losing, but he would get even more upset with Glenn when he just let him win.

A lot had changed in twelve years, but it seemed like some things really did stay the same…

It took him a second longer than it probably should have to realize Byleth was the one pumping him full of healing magic. Maybe he really _was_ concussed.

“I should take you to the infirmary,” she said, sounding strangely calm considering everything that had just happened— but if she was Felix’s teacher, he supposed she would be used to him by now.

Glenn laughed and shook his head. “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll be bruised and sore for a while, but I’ve dealt with a lot worse, and I don’t think anything’s broken.” He reached up to gingerly touch his nose, just to see if that was true or not. It hurt like Hell, but even if it was broken, there wasn’t really much anyone would be able to do about it except maybe tape it to keep it from moving too much…

Byleth got to her feet from where she was kneeling next to him and offered him a hand up, which he accepted; she also offered him a handkerchief to clean the blood from his face, which he also accepted, even though he felt a bit guilty about ruining it.

“...You should go after him.”

Glenn was staring off at the door that he assumed Felix had stormed out through while he was rolling around on the floor trying to catch his breath, and he was startled when she said that as she took the handkerchief from him as though it wasn’t covered in his nose blood.

“I’m… Not sure that’s smart right now,” Glenn replied with a laugh that had absolutely no humour in it, staring down at his shirt that he’d bled all over. No way he was going to be able to hide that from Miklan— not to mention the fact that his face was already turning into a bruised, swollen mess. “He was… Pretty upset. And rightly so.”

“That’s why you should go talk to him,” she said, adamantly, a hand on his shoulder that wasn’t so much comforting as it felt like the prelude to a scolding— looking into her eyes sent a shiver down his spine, and considering the sort of shit he’d seen in his life, that was an impressive feat on its own. “Before he has a chance to shut down his feelings. I think it’s good for him to be upset, but he won’t see it that way. Not unless he has someone there to talk to him about being upset.”

Glenn stared at her, and blinked slowly.

Something unpleasant flooded his chest and stomach, warm and sickening. This woman who had probably only known Felix for a few months at most had something so insightful to say about Felix— something that he had to assume was true because, really, what did _he_ know about Felix? Everything he knew about his brother was about a five year old boy who cried about everything and had always tried to cling to his leg whenever he had to leave.

This woman knew Felix better than _he_ did— and all he wanted to do was run away again.

He shook his head. Not to disagree with her, but to clear it of some of the fog that had settled there, the same one that had tried to trap him in his own thoughts and doubts when he and Miklan had first arrived.

When Glenn had decided to run away from home, he hadn’t stopped to think about it— in fact, he had gone out of his way trying _not_ to think about it, and had almost vibrated out of his own skin when Miklan had told him that no, they couldn’t just throw their overnight bags on the back of a horse and ride off into the night in the middle of the biggest rainstorm of the season, because that was _stupid_.

Overthinking things had always been his biggest enemy. It was why he had always applied himself so hard to his training, even when the realities of knighthood terrified him. When you were training, you didn’t have to think about anything else except what your body was doing, and what your _opponent_ was doing.

Was that— what Felix had been doing? Challenging him to a spar so he could think about how to beat him instead of thinking about all of the— the _history_ , the memories, the mistakes Glenn had made, his own feelings?

Goddess, he was stupid. Unbelievably stupid.

“I…” He shook his head again, then swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. “I should. Go after him.”

“The only other place he would really go would be back to his room, I think,” Byleth said. “If you head back the way we came, you’ll see a greenhouse next to the fishing dock, and just beyond that is a staircase; Felix’s room is the third from the far end of the hall.”

“Are you sure you should be telling me all of this?” He gave her an odd look. “I mean, I might be Felix’s brother, but you can tell that we’re not exactly close. And I _did_ just sort of wander in out of nowhere. You’ve only talked to me for a few minutes. I could be a dangerous person.”

Why he was trying to convince this clearly _also_ dangerous person with a vested interest in the students’ safety that he might be dangerous? Maybe it was so the decision could be taken from him. Despite being a good mercenary and a _damn_ good swordfighter (no matter what a scrap with his little brother might say), he’d never been good at making choices— when he was younger there had been no point, since his entire future had basically been planned out from the day he was born, and after he ran away it had been easier to just go along with the flow; he went where the work took him, his only concern being living to see another day, and when it came to battle Miklan was the better tactician anyway.

If he got himself kicked out of Garreg Mach for being a potential threat— well, then he wouldn’t have to worry about being bogged down by his own indecisiveness. He had rebelled against going along blindly with someone else’s orders the way his father always had, but that didn’t mean he was the sort to grab life by the throat and carve his own path— that was why he’d needed Miklan’s desperate plea to run away with him to kick him in the ass. It was just… Easier that way.

But— if something was easy, then it wasn’t worth doing. Isn’t that what people always said? He couldn’t quite remember the saying, but it didn’t matter.

He’d suggested they come to Garreg Mach for Miklan’s sake, mostly because he’d never quite stopped feeling guilty— even though running off had been Miklan’s idea in the first place, it had only been for Glenn’s sake. Miklan’s life had been shit, but being quietly pushed off to the side and ignored in favour of his younger brother was a far cry from running off to become a sellsword. If not for Glenn’s future as a knight of Faerghus, destined to live and die for his king and to marry a respectable woman and create a future generation of little Fraldarius’ to run off and do the same, he probably would have stuck around, enduring his family’s indifference— for Sylvain’s sake.

It was Glenn’s fault they’d been separated, and even though he would never voice something like that out loud (Miklan would be way too quick to call him an idiot and spend an hour or two telling him how wrong he was, for starters), giving Miklan the chance to make things right by his brother had seemed like the easiest way to ease his guilty conscience.

And now he had another chance to ease his own guilt— or, more importantly, to put right what he’d fucked up all those years ago. Even if Felix didn’t forgive him, he could at least give him a sense of closure, right?

And yet here he was, trying to think up any excuse to run away, almost hoping for a reason to be forced to.

He was such a coward.

“If you wanted to _be_ a danger, you could have been one by now,” Byleth said plainly. “Not to mention, I trust Felix to be able to handle himself. And it’s obvious that he really wants to speak with you. He wouldn’t have challenged you otherwise; he would have just told you to leave.”

Again the fact that this relative stranger seemed to know his own brother better than he did bothered him. Again he had to remind himself that was really no one’s fault but his own, and that he was only making things worse by standing there instead of doing what needed to be done…

He shook his head and headed for the doors. He could second guess himself later. Right now, _Felix_ had to be his top priority.

The directions Byleth had given him were simple enough, and despite the fact that he was walking around a _school_ in rough armour with _blood on his face_ , and got a few weird looks from passing students, no one tried to stop him or even ask him who he was or where he was going.

All of which was… _Troubling_ , since this was the school his little brother would be attending for the rest of the year, but it suited his purposes well enough so he shoved it down and continued on with his mission before he gave himself a chance to stop and think about it too much.

Up the stairs, down the hall, and then he was in front of the third door from the end— just where Byleth had told him to go. He raised his fist to knock, hesitated, then pushed through and knocked a bit _too_ loudly.

No answer.

He knocked again.

“Whoever it is, fuck off,” he heard from the other side of the door (and for a moment he was taken aback by the _language_ coming out of his brother’s mouth, but he was pretty sure he had been a lot worse even _before_ he had run off to join a mercenary band, so he was going to heed that old saying about stones and glass houses). “I’m not in the mood.”

“Felix,” he said, trying not to make it sound like a question because it wasn’t like he didn’t know who was on the other side of the door. “I think we should sit and have that talk I wanted to have.”

Silence.

Glenn felt like he was frozen to the spot. He had made it this far, and if Felix didn’t want to talk to him, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do— he didn’t exactly have a plan B, and he certainly didn’t want this to be the end of it, but—

The door opened so suddenly, the shock almost knocked Glenn flat on his ass. Some big tough mercenary _he_ was.

Felix stood in the doorway, staring at him in silence, completely blocking the way in. He looked him up and down— Glenn almost felt like he was being judged, and quite probably being found wanting…

“Get in,” Felix said, jerking his head to the side as he stepped out of the doorway to let Glenn pass.

He nodded dumbly and followed him inside.

It was a small room— but then, it was a school dorm, so he probably shouldn’t have expected much. And it was still bigger than a lot of the places he and Miklan had stayed over the years. And _definitely_ bigger than their tent.

Felix sat down on the edge of his bed, wrinkling the already wrinkled blue bedspread— were all of the rooms colour coded like this?— and nodded towards the chair that was sticking out at an odd angle from his desk.

Glenn took a moment to look around before he sat down. Aside from it being a generic example of a (weirdly blue) dorm room, he could see a few personal touches, intentional or otherwise— the room had a sense of organized chaos for one, not being dirty or messy but being dishevelled in all the ways that showed that Felix only cared to clean and tidy as much as he absolutely needed to, hence the rumpled bedspread and the chair sticking out from the desk. The air smelled vaguely of sword oil, and there were several swords lined up against the far wall that he was guessing was the source.

“I don’t recall you _winning_ the fight,” Felix said, crossing his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow at Glenn.

He almost wanted to choke; it was like looking in a mirror, whenever he and Miklan had a fight.

“I don’t recall you making that part of the _terms_ ,” he said back, because when in doubt, be a smart-ass— a tactic that had served him and Miklan well over the years. Or, to be more accurate, very poorly, but that was neither here nor there… “And if I recall, you stormed out before there was an official call. I think that counts as a forfeit.”

Inside his own head, he was screaming at himself to _shut up_ , but the words tumbled out before he could force himself to do so. Felix’s glower from his position on the bed became more and more intense, until he understood the meaning of the phrase ‘if looks could kill’...

“Look, Felix,” Glenn said with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I— I didn’t come here to fight. Or to be a jackass.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Force of habit.” He laughed, trying to lighten the tone of the room, but he didn’t feel like he did a very good job. When it came to his sense of humour, he was more of a taunting type than a disarming type… “I… Just wanted to…”

“Spit it out already, I don’t have all day. Aren’t you the one who wanted to talk?”

Glenn swallowed the urge to snap back at him to just let him think for a second, since he was pretty sure that was going to get him kicked out, and he’d already reminded himself time and time again that Felix _deserved_ to be annoyed with him.

It was just— hard to condense everything he thought and felt and wanted Felix to know into _words_. And it was even harder with the nerves that were welling up from the way Felix was glaring at him, the tension in the room almost palpable.

If he couldn’t think of the perfect thing to say, though— well, he at least had to say _something_. And so he said the first thing that came to his mind.

“...You were amazing out there,” he said. “You’ve been training hard all these years, and it really shows. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who fights quite like you do.”

Felix obviously hadn’t been expecting that— which was fair, since Glenn hadn’t realized that was what he was going to say until he was halfway through already saying it— because he looked at him with wide eyes, and some of his muscle tension disappeared before the frown and furrowed brow returned.

“Save the flattery,” he grunted, but from the light dusting of pink that was showing up on his cheeks, Glenn had a feeling he was feeling more embarrassed than angry. “Besides, I _had_ to train hard. I was never going to be the perfect golden boy that _you_ were, so I had to do _something_.”

Glenn winced at that. There wasn’t exactly anything he could say to that— trying to be that _golden boy_ and finding it wanting was the exact reason he’d been so eager to run off, after all.

Well, that and the whole betrothal thing.

“It’s not flattery,” Glenn said honestly, because it was the only thing he could think to say that wasn’t going to start an argument. “I spend a lot of time fighting people. I mean, it’s my job, after all. I’ve really never seen someone fight the way you do. I’m not saying I’ve never seen anyone better than you, but it would be a short list…”

Honestly, from what little he had gotten to see before it evolved into an all-out brawl, he wasn’t sure he would even be on it. He might have more practical experience, but not only was Felix’s form tops, he had adapted so quickly…

Glenn was glad that it had just been a spar, even if it had gotten out of hand at the end there. If it had been a _real_ fight, he wasn’t sure he would have walked away from it.

“Where did you even learn to fight like that?” he asked, genuinely curious. “It couldn’t have been from dad.”

Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius was an excellent warrior. Glenn had no doubt that hadn’t changed in the last twelve years, even though age was probably starting to slow his father down… But still, he could remember being a squire in awe of his father, watching him train new recruits and knocking them down like they were nothing more than straw dummies. Give him a lance and a horse, and he could do the job of _five_ knights, or at least that was what Glenn’s rose-tinged memory said.

Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius also couldn’t swing a sword to save his life. No offense to his father, but he was a lance man and it showed. Glenn had first picked up the sword because of their mother, but she had passed from the same disease that had claimed the queen, when Felix was no doubt still too young to remember her…

“From tutors, mostly,” Felix said. “I have no intentions of becoming the boar’s lapdog just because _you_ decided you didn’t want to be, but being a squire gave me a chance to study under knights who actually knew what they were doing. And even though it’s only been a few months, Professor Byleth has taught me more than all of them combined.”

Glenn chuckled; he couldn’t help it, seeing the way Felix’s expression started to brighten as he talked about his training. As soon as he did, though, Felix’s expression hardened back into a scowl— then he looked away with his arms crossed.

“...At first, I tried to fight like you,” he said, and it sounded like a huge admission. “But I never quite got the hang of it, moving the way you do, and no one else could ever quite teach me. Not to mention I could barely remember it. So, I gave up.”

Glenn winced hard at that. Every time one of those reminders cropped up, he felt like he was being stabbed in the chest. But he would power through it. He knew he deserved it, after all.

“You’ve done well enough on your own,” he said with a shake of his head. Then, bowing it and folding his hands together in his lap. “...I wish I had been there to teach you.”

“There was nothing stopping you. Nothing but yourself.”

Another stab in the chest. Another one he deserved. And there was nothing he could say to that, because… It was true.

“You’re right,” he said with a sigh and another shake of the head. He chuckled, but there was no humour in it. “I ran away, because I couldn’t stand the idea of becoming that perfect Fraldarius heir that everyone thought of me as, and I was too scared to just stand up to our father and put my foot down about it. I thought it was my only way out, and I never even stopped to consider the fact that it meant I would be leaving you to the same fate, and without me there to help or guide you. And… I’m sorry.”

Once he started talking, Glenn found that— much to his embarrassment— he couldn’t _stop_. The words just kept pouring out; all of the things he had wanted to say for years, and even a few things he hadn’t thought to say until he had Felix right there in front of him, _real_ …

With all of it out there in the open, though, all he could do was… Wait to hear what Felix had to say about it.

Silence.

Glenn wasn’t looking at Felix; he was looking at his own hands, folded in his lap. If he hadn’t thought Miklan was a liar when he told him he was brave in the past, he certainly would think so now, because no matter how happy he was to charge onto the battlefield and cut down enemies he absolutely couldn’t bear the thought of looking up and seeing something dark and terrible in Felix’s face.

“...You are an _idiot_.”

It wasn’t the insult that made Glenn’s head snap up; it was the hitch in Felix’s breath in the middle of the sentence.

When he looked _at_ him, Felix was looking _away_. Not at anything in particular, so far as Glenn could tell; he was looking down and away, his hair falling into his eyes where he hadn’t bothered to pull it back into his updo after it had gotten tousled during their fight.

“Apologize all you want,” Felix continued, his voice dark just like Glenn had feared, but the fact that it kept wavering was of far more interest— and _concern_ — for him. “It doesn’t change anything— it doesn’t change the fact that you weren’t _there_. I don’t _care_ how sorry you are or how much you regret it, I just—”

“Just…?”

Glenn could sense it; the tension in both the air and in Felix’s shoulders said it all. Glenn tried not to stare at him, but he felt anticipation creeping up his spine as he watched Felix take a deep breath and raised his shoulders, looking him square in the eye, revealing the tears he had been trying so hard to hide…

“I don’t want you to apologize. If you’re really serious about this— then I want you to promise.” Felix’s jaw was practically trembling with the effort of holding back tears, even as a few escaped despite his best efforts, each one another stab directly to Glenn’s heart. “Promise that this isn’t just some… Fucked up attempt to clear your conscience and you’re just going to disappear again when I turn my back. Instead of just _saying_ that you’re sorry, prove it. Don’t… Don’t leave again.”

And that was the moment when, despite all of his best efforts, the tears that were welling up started to spill over, and all the self-control in the world couldn’t keep him from breaking down into sobs.

When Felix had been little, he had cried about… Well, just about everything. Glenn could remember comforting him after nightmares, seeing him run off to Sylvain after he beat him during a spar, Glenn having to pry a sobbing Felix off of their father’s leg when he had to leave for Fhirdiad on some kind of important business…

He could tell, just from watching Felix try to hold back, the way he fought against his own tears, that that certainly wasn’t true anymore. And yet here he was, breaking down into tears right in front of him— _because_ of him.

It would have almost been endearing if it wasn’t so _distressing_.

Thankfully, Glenn’s body knew what to do while his brain was still caught up in that distress; rather than freezing like a statue, he practically jumped up out of the desk chair and was at Felix’s side in a second. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in, his other hand going to the back of Felix’s head as he pulled him into the crook of his neck.

“Felix,” he said, with more breath than voice. “Oh, Felix. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

The words fell from his mouth without hesitation— and before he could think about what he was saying.

It wasn’t exactly a decision he should have been making by himself— he had come to Garreg Mach with and for Miklan. He had _run away_ from his life, everything he cared about, for Miklan. The plan had been to go back to their mercenary group after they had a chance to speak with their brothers. He should _not_ have been agreeing to something like that without talking to him.

But at that moment in time, he couldn’t imagine _not_ saying yes to that. Felix was right— all the apologies in the world din’t mean a damn thing if he couldn’t back them up with his actions, and try to do better.

He would figure out what to say to Miklan later. For the moment, he was completely absorbed in the way Felix’s arms wrapped around him in turn and he almost _burrowed_ into his shoulder. He could feel his hot tears soaking through his shirt as he rubbed what he hoped were comforting circles on Felix’s back.

“You better mean that,” Felix said, although it was hard to tell with his voice as muffled as it was by the way his face was buried in Glenn’s shoulder.

And, no matter what difficulties might come from it (and off the top of his head he could think of… a few), Glenn _did_ mean it.

They stayed like that for what was probably a minute, but felt, simultaneously, way longer than that and not nearly long enough. Then Felix pulled back, brushing Glenn’s arm from his shoulders and using his sleeve to wipe the tears and snot that were still on his face. Aside from his eyes being red and puffy, a moment later you never would have been able to tell he was just sobbing into someone’s shoulder.

“Don’t even think about telling anyone about that,” he said, even as he let out another few sniffles, scrubbing even more harshly at his face.

Glenn wanted to ask who Felix thought he would tell, but thought better of it, and just nodded instead.


	7. miklan

It was… _strange_ , walking around Garreg Mach, knowing that if circumstances had been different he probably would have ended up being a student there.

Of course, that was assuming that either he’d been born with a Crest or that the Margrave wasn’t a massive dick, which were both pretty big logical leaps to make, but still. He was allowed to dream, wasn’t he?

After their little chat— and a lot of Sylvain clinging to him like he was going to be carried away on the breeze, and making him reiterate that promise he made (without even thinking) over and over again— the kid was like night and day. Instead of either trying to play things casual and easygoing with a fake smile on his face, or storming off, Sylvain was happily chattering away as he dragged him around the monastery, insisting on showing him everything— like he was getting a guided tour, except most guided tours didn’t include being literally pulled around by his elbow like Sylvain thought he was going to take off if he didn’t have a vice grip on him at all times.

(He wasn’t gonna fault him for keeping his expectations low; Miklan wasn’t gonna run off, but he didn’t blame him for thinking that he might.)

Kid was stronger than he had expected, considering Miklan was practically twice his size— but then, he was just a big guy, it wasn’t like Sylvain was exactly a stick himself. It had been especially easy to see when he was standing next to Felix— a lot of years of _personal experience_ and what vague memories he had of Rodrigue told him that, while no slouches on the battlefield, Fraldarius men tended towards the slight side, more wiry muscle and speed than heavy hitting hard muscle.

Sylvain hadn’t exactly taken after him or their father— even in this, he looked more like their mother— but judging by the way he was dragging him around without breaking a sweat (and Miklan was sure would be able to do so even if he tried to dig his feet in), he was no slouch in the strength department…

“If you go back down there you’ll be back at the market,” Sylvain said, gesturing down a flight of stairs they walked by so fast it was practically a blur. “Over here is the dining hall again. And there’s the pond, and the greenhouse, and over this way—”

Miklan was only half listening to what Sylvain was saying— not because he wasn’t interested, but because he was talking so fast he really didn’t get a chance to absorb any of it— but he definitely noticed when he abruptly _stopped_ , and that was before Sylvain threw on the brakes so hard Miklan practically walked into him.

“There you are Sylvain— I’ve been looking all over for you. Did you forget about our lesson? I’m concerned that the Professor may not be able to delay your exam simply because of your recent… _Condition_.”

“What His Highness _means_ to say, Sylvain, is that even Professor Byleth is not going to be afraid to fail you if you don’t stop slacking off—”

The voices didn’t need to sound familiar (he hadn’t heard them in over ten years, which was plenty of time for them to change, especially since puberty had happened somewhere in there) for him to know exactly who was coming around the corner that had made Sylvain freeze like a deer in the face of a hunter’s bow.

They obviously didn’t notice him right away— or, more realistically, they _did_ and they simply didn’t recognize him or think he was important, since (not to sing his own praises or anything) he was pretty damn hard to _miss_ , especially with Sylvain pulling him around like he had him on a leash.

Then, suddenly, they did.

Dimitri and Ingrid both froze and stared at him with the same wide-eyed look Sylvain had at the moment. Ingrid even looked over at Dimitri, then back at Miklan, like she was checking to make sure they were seeing the same thing.

Just like Sylvain and Felix, it didn’t matter how long it had been since he’d last seen them— he would have recognized them anywhere. Dimitri was the spitting image of his dad, for starters…

“Hey guys!” Sylvain said brightly, suddenly recovering from being frozen in place, but while he sounded just as excited and chipper as he had a few moments ago, there was something strained in it— like he was nervous. “Sorry I didn’t show up— guess I lost track of time. But! Look who I found! My brother!”

Sylvain reached up to put an arm around his shoulders and pull him down almost to his level, wearing a grin that was just on the edge of goofy, but Miklan could tell from the look in his eyes that he was more nervous than anything— he didn’t look any less panicked than when he’d been frozen in place.

It was actually a wonder that Dimitri and Ingrid _didn’t_ notice, and were instead mostly staring at him like he was… A ghost, or something. Weren’t they supposed to be Sylvain’s friends? Had that much really changed in a decade? Or maybe he was just more of a surprise than he thought.

“Small world, huh?” Sylvain’s arm around his shoulder turned into a pat, and Miklan put his own arm around Sylvain’s shoulders, wondering what exactly was going through their heads.

“I— I suppose it is,” Ingrid said, sounding baffled, her eyes still the size of dinner plates.

“I… Don’t understand,” Dimitri said next, frowning and cupping his chin between his thumb and forefinger, clearly confused. “Miklan…? After all this time?”

“We happened to be in the area,” Miklan said immediately, nipping whatever was going through the prince’s head in the bud. He could practically see smoke coming out of the kid’s ears. He’d never pegged Dimitri as a paranoid kid— then again, he’d been five years old the last time Miklan had seen him, and in the interim someone had tried to kill him and his dad. He’d earned a bit of paranoia. “Figured we would drop in— you know, apologize for just up and disappearing for so long.”

It sounded stupid when he put it like that, but it had sounded kind of stupid when Glenn had suggested they just take off to Garreg Mach on a whim in the first place, so that was probably to be expected.

It also skipped over a lot of stuff, but based on the play acting he’d seen him doing so far, Miklan didn’t think Sylvain would care much for him spilling the emotional moment they’d been having just a few minutes ago…

“We…?”

On the one hand, he wanted to smack himself for saying that, based on the way Ingrid’s eyes went— _somehow_ — even wider, but on the other hand it wasn’t like lying was gonna do them any good, not when Glenn was probably off doing the same thing with Felix that he’d just been doing with Sylvain, and would show up sooner or later— if he didn’t sneak off back to town to avoid potentially running into the same pair he just had which, thinking about it, sounded _exactly_ like something Glenn would do.

He’d decided to pick up and run off to become a mercenary rather than have a heart to heart with his dad, and while Miklan was more than glad he’d made that decision, it was still pretty indicative of Glenn’s conflict resolution skills on the whole.

“Yeah,” he said, deciding that leaning into it was better than lying or trying to hide something that they were probably gonna find out soon enough anyway.

Judging by the way Dimitri had sounded, and the look he was getting right now, he was under enough suspicion as is.

“Glenn and I heard Sylvain and Felix would be at the Academy this year,” he said, giving Sylvain a squeeze as he said it. “When work brought us close by, we figured we’d stop by.”

“Mercenary work,” Dimitri said, not really a question, but Miklan nodded anyway. He had nothing to hide. “We’d always suspected, but… When Rodrigue gave up his search, no one felt the need to dig any further.”

“I figured. We weren’t exactly hiding.” He sighed, using the hand that wasn’t on Sylvain’s shoulder to push his hair back from his face. “I mean— not for long, anyway. The Margrave made it pretty damn clear I wasn’t welcome back home, and when Rodrigue didn’t bring Fodlan down around our ears after the first few months, we figured he’d accepted Glenn’s decision.”

Dimitri nodded, solemnly, to that. Ingrid, on the other hand, had gone from wide-eyed to staring at the ground, hands folded together, a weird— _upset_ — look on her face.

He knew she didn’t deserve it— she’d been a kid, just like Sylvain, younger even than he was, and caught up in the same bullshit Faerghus politics as the rest of them— but he couldn’t look at her without feeling a stab of something halfway between anger and jealousy when the thought, ‘Glenn was supposed to marry _her_ instead of _you_ ’ flooded his brain without his permission.

He pushed _that_ down as deep as it would go, hopefully never to see the light of day again. He’d spent a long time when he was a kid, way longer than he was proud of, blaming Sylvain for the fact that their father and their entire damn _country_ were assholes that were happy to deny him his birthright because of the fuckery of bloodlines. He’d vowed never to be that person again— to direct his anger and blame where it was _really_ due, at the assholes in charge who liked things the way they were and the slightly-less-than assholes who let them get away with it because they didn’t want to speak up.

Still, looking at her made his ring finger twitch in an unpleasant way…

“Yeah, dear old _dad_ definitely wasn’t happy with you,” Sylvain said with a snort. “In fact, he still gets pretty annoyed whenever you get mentioned… He’d probably be _furious_ if he knew I was talking to you right now.”

And as he said that, Sylvain looked over at Ingrid and Dimitri, his arm around Miklan’s shoulders squeezing him the same way Miklan had just done to him. He almost looked like he was— going to _challenge_ them or something.

It was actually pretty endearing, seeing his brother willing to stand up for him even after everything he’d done…

Ingrid snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in since he mentioned Glenn so she could glare at Sylvain with her arms crossed.

“Sylvain, do you _really_ think either of us would do something like that?” Ingrid asked, obviously insulted by the suggestion.

“Of course not, Ingrid,” he said, with all the sincerity of a snake oil salesman. “I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“If I haven’t reported any of your behaviour up to _this_ point to your father, what makes you think I would tell him about _this_?” Ingrid asked, clearly not buying it for a second— smart girl, he decided. “Besides, if your concern is about your father finding out, rather than getting suspicious about _us_ , you should consider whether it’s a smart idea to drag him around in plain sight all across the monastery.”

“She’s got a point,” Miklan said, although he wasn’t nearly as concerned as Sylvain. He’d meant what he said; he had no intention of going anywhere, and he certainly wasn’t going to let _Margrave Gautier_ have a say in it.

If he did decide to throw a tantrum about it, Miklan would deal with it when the time came. Unlike Glenn, he had absolutely no concerns about royally pissing off his father…

“She certainly does,” Dimitri said, and Miklan didn’t miss the fact that his eyes barely moved away from him the entire time.

Paranoid might have been putting it mildly.

“I’m surprised you’ve made it this long without the Knights of Seiros giving you a hard time,” he continued. “It certainly isn’t like them to simply allow just anyone to wander around the monastery unsupervised…”

“Your guess is as good as mine about that one,” Miklan said honestly. “We didn’t think we’d even make it past the gate, but aside from a few nasty looks, no one gave us any trouble.”

“Let’s not go looking a gift horse in the mouth, alright? The Knights are busy people. Sometimes things just slip through the cracks.”

Sylvain sounded… Annoyed? Miklan was pretty good at reading people, and he was picking up on Sylvain fast, but there were a few still throwing him for a loop. But there _was_ a certain tightness in his voice when he said that, an almost snappish attitude towards Dimitri that surprised him…

“It’s not unreasonable to think they might be a bit thinly spread at the moment,” Ingrid added, helpfully, and he once again felt pretty guilty about the way he’d been thinking about her just a minute ago. “Considering everything that’s happened, even in these few months… It’s concerning to think security might be at all lax, but I don’t think it’s that unusual.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Ingrid,” Dimitri said, giving his head a small shake. “I suppose all of the… _excitement_ just has me feeling paranoid, that’s all. Still, I think it would be prudent of us to take this somewhere… More…”

He didn’t have to follow Dimitri’s line of sight to see what had made him trail off like that and give _him_ the dinner plate eyes— which looked even more hilarious on the Crown Prince of Faerghus than it did on Ingrid.

He still _did,_ though, even though he didn’t _have_ to.

Miklan would never get tired of looking at Glenn, after all.


	8. glenn

Glenn realized, maybe just a _smidge_ too late, that he had just walked into what one might call an _undesirable situation_.

He would have been happy to stay up in Felix’s dorm room— it was nice and private, and he was pretty sure neither of them wanted anyone seeing them being saps, mostly because Felix had said as much and Glenn felt inclined to agree— except for the fact that he’d gone off without telling Miklan where he was going, and Miklan had done the same, and from what he’d seen of the monastery it was the sort of place where it was easy to get lost— the last thing he wanted was to end up blindly wandering around looking for Miklan, especially since while he had managed to get _most_ of the blood off his face, there was still quite a bit on his clothes, not to mention a nasty bruise and some swelling…

Fortunately, he had found him almost as soon as he and Felix went downstairs.

Less fortunately, he had also found the exact two people he’d been worried about running into.

Dimitri had been in the middle of saying something when he’d caught sight of him, and had promptly trailed off with a look on his face like he’d just spotted some kind of mythical creature. Ingrid quickly turned to look at what he’d seen, and her expression changed to mirror his.

It was almost impressive, actually.

Glenn was caught between two responses; freezing completely, and making some kind of smartass comment.

“Hey, Dimitri,” he said brightly, casually, in a way that probably would have had his father smacking him for addressing the prince like that, folding his hands behind his head. “Long time no see. Were you always this tall?”

He wasn’t very good at making split second decisions.

“Glenn,” Dimitri said, almost sputtering. “Miklan said, but I didn’t think— well. I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s… Good to see you well.”

“And the same to you, Your Highness,” he said, and felt a twinge of guilt— he was getting pretty good at ignoring those, having accepted that they weren’t likely to go away any time soon, but that was an awfully big one.

“We were… Just discussing how we should take this somewhere a bit more private,” he said, clearing his throat. “Before someone… Less understanding comes along.”

“Agreed,” Glenn said immediately, but couldn’t help but catch Miklan’s eye as he said it, wondering exactly what they’d been talking about before he’d walked up that _that_ had been the conclusion…

Still, the fewer people who knew he was there, the better. Not that he’d done a very good job of that, walking around the monastery like he owned the place, but…

Dimitri turned to walk away, and they all followed, but Glenn in particular couldn’t help but notice the way Ingrid kept staring at him in silence…

“Would anyone care for a cup of tea?”

Glenn had _probably_ experienced weirder things in his lifetime, but sitting in a cozy sitting room behind what he was pretty sure could be classified as a _hidden door_ and being offered a cup of tea by the _Crown Prince of Faerghus_ almost certainly made the top five.

“Please, Your Highness, allow me.”

The Duscurian teenager— still twice as large as Glenn and outshining even Miklan, which was certainly no small feat— was named Dedue, or so he had learned. Dimitri had told him that he could be trusted and Glenn had no reason to argue with him on the matter.

“Really, Dedue. I’m perfectly capable of serving tea for guests.”

“All the same, I’m certain you have much to discuss. I would only be in the way.”

“...Very well then, Dedue. Thank you.”

Glenn felt… A little uncomfortable, if he was being honest. Not just because he was in a weird room and totally out of his comfort zone (did he even _remember_ the rules of dining with royalty that his father had drilled into him so much as a kid? Did this even count as dining? Did any of it really _matter_?) but also because…

Well, he probably wouldn’t have been _serving tea_ if he’d stayed in Dimitri’s service instead of running off with Miklan, but it still reminded him that he would have been at Dimitri’s hand, and that gave him a whole bunch of mixed feelings to consider on top of all of the _other_ feelings he had to consider at the same time.

The room was big enough to accomodate all of them— Miklan was sitting in an almost ratty armchair across from him and the couch he’d claimed, with Sylvain sitting on the armrest of Miklan’s chair and Felix sitting next to him on the couch. Dimitri took a seat in a similarly comfortable but worn looking chair at the end of the rough table that was between all of them, and Ingrid…

Well, it was hard for Glenn to ignore the way she was lurking in the corner and trying not to stare at him, and failing pretty badly at it, but he wasn’t sure what else he _could_ do except for just— _try_ to ignore it…

“Dedue is well acquainted with the kitchen staff,” Dimitri said. “They use this place as a break room of sorts. We should be unbothered here.”

Glenn nodded. He had no idea what to say. He really… Hadn’t thought this through beyond just showing up at Garreg Mach.

He was glad they had, though… Wouldn’t trade what had happened between him and Felix for anything (even if his face still fucking _hurt_ , and no, he hadn’t missed Miklan glancing over at him every so often with an expression on his face that said he was concerned but would ask about it later), but…

Well. He hadn’t thought things through. And neither had Miklan. Which was pretty typical for the both of them. Funny, almost.

“I hope I haven’t worried the two of you too much,” Dimitri said with a laugh that Glenn assumed was supposed to sound comforting. “With all of this insistence on privacy…”

“The fewer people know we’re here, the better,” Miklan said, thankfully, so Glenn didn’t have to. He was becoming increasingly convinced that if he opened his mouth to say _anything_ , he was going to end up saying something _stupid_ , so better just to keep his mouth shut…

“I know I was kind of an ass about it earlier, but you guys _will_ help keep this a secret, right?” Sylvain asked. “My father can be… Pretty stubborn. No telling what he might do if he finds out.”

Miklan snorted, and Glenn could only agree with his silent criticism. He’d never really gotten to know Margrave Gautier too well— he knew him as a friend of his father, and as the father of his friend, and from what he had seen he had done a shitty job at both of those things.

‘Pretty stubborn’ was putting it mildly.

“Of course, Sylvain,” Dimitri answered immediately. “Even regardless of anyone’s _personal feelings_ towards your father, I think we can all agree that it would only create unnecessary conflict, and we already have many other things to worry about at the moment.”

Glenn wondered if that extended to him as well, but he still felt like it was a better idea for him to sit back and stay quiet for the moment.

“But that does beg the question of how we are going to _keep_ your father from finding out,” he continued. “Garreg Mach is certainly isolated, but under a great deal of scrutiny… Of course, I suppose that is only an issue if you two plan on staying?”

Glenn felt something cold in the pit of his stomach. Awkward as this whole thing with Dimitri and Ingrid was, it had at least given him a temporary haven from having to talk to Miklan about the promise he’d made to Felix… But if he dodged the question or said something less than affirmative, he risked the progress they had made so far…

Well, fuck it. He was a lot more certain that Miklan would forgive him for making stupid, spur of the moment decisions than he was that Felix would forgive him for going back on a promise. Being married for almost a decade had to count for _something_.

“Well, actually—”

“I was actually thinking—”

Glenn’s head whipped around to stare at Miklan with what he was sure was the same expression Dimitri had been looking at _him_ with earlier, and was greeted with the same— which was almost hilarious to look at on his husband’s gruff, serious face, to the point that Glenn almost started laughing.

They met each other’s eyes for a moment, and Miklan nodded, and Glenn nodded back— and even though they would probably need to have an actual talk about this at some point, for now, that was all they needed to know they both understood.

“We don’t have any jobs lined up,” Glenn said, feeling a bit more confident that he wasn’t going to say anything stupid. “And considering everything, I… Think we’d both like to stick around for a while.”

“Don’t worry about the Margrave,” Miklan said. “If it gets back to him and he decides to make a big deal out of it, I’ll figure out a way to handle him.”

Glenn wasn’t sure whether it was fair to say the same about his own father— after all, unlike Miklan’s dad, his own had always been loving. He had just been… Too caught up in the traditions of Faerghus to realize that Glenn wanted something different, and the way he’d reacted when he’d asked him about marrying Ingrid when he was a kid hadn’t exactly blessed him with a great deal of confidence.

He wasn’t sure how a meeting with Rodrigue would go, but— he wasn’t worried about anything but his own pride. He was a grown man who had willingly renounced his title a long time ago, and Rodrigue wasn’t the reactionary sort like Margrave Gautier was. The worst thing that would happen would be driving a wedge into a rift Glenn was even less sure could be healed than the one between him and Felix.

It would hurt, but he could live with that; he hadn’t even seen his father in over a decade, after all. He could close the book on that chapter and move on.

What he couldn’t move on from was his husband ending up in jail because his vindictive father felt like being a petty asshole.

For that very reason, part of him wanted to argue with Miklan about saying something like that, but he also understood. For one, he didn’t want to drag Sylvain into | a mess like that. Although judging by the look on Sylvain’s face, Glenn had a feeling he was going to drag _himself_ into it whether Miklan liked it or not…

For another, he hadn’t missed the way Miklan kept glancing over at Dimitri, or the way Dimitri’s eyes wandered over to Miklan more often than they did anyone else. He had no idea what had gone on or what they’d been talking about before he’d shown up, but he knew he was going to have to ask Miklan about it the moment they got a second alone…

“I’m more worried about the Knights and the Church,” Miklan said, and Glenn nodded in his agreement.

“They didn’t bother us before now but they might not appreciate a couple of mercenaries hanging around for long,” he continued. “Not that I figure we’ll be actually staying _in_ the Monastery for long…”

He sensed Felix tensing up next to him, and so he quickly added, “We’ve got a room at the inn in town. And our horses are boarded there. But I’m pretty sure we qualify as shady characters, so…”

“Speak for yourself, maybe,” Miklan said, grinning at him from across the room. “I’m a perfectly upstanding citizen. _You’re_ the unfettered gremlin. Just last week I had to stop you from starting a bar fight with a bunch of guys twice your size.”

“They were a bunch of farm boys. I’m not exactly scared of their _pitchforks_ , no matter how big their muscles were,” Glenn replied immediately, glaring at Miklan across the room. “I was more concerned about stopping them from bothering that barmaid. Besides, it’s pretty generous to say you _stopped_ the fight. They just happened to be smart enough to realize they were outmatched and take off. You would have been right there in the middle of the brawl with me if not for that.”

He and Miklan glared at each other, which, as it always did, broke down into laughter before long. It was only after that that Glenn remembered they were in a room full of other people— all of whom were staring right at them in various combinations of surprised, amused, impressed, and— whatever it was that Ingrid was feeling.

“It certainly sounds like the two of you lead interesting lives,” Dimitri said.

“That’s the mercenary life for you. See all kinds of interesting things and meet all kinds of people when you don’t stay in any one place for too long.”

“Our professor was a mercenary, too,” Sylvain said, and the way his eyes were sparkling and he was looking back and forth between Miklan and Glenn reminded Glenn of an excited dog. “She has a lot of stories like that to tell.”

“She’s a merc?” Glenn asked. “Guess that’s not surprising. She did carry herself like one.”

“You met the professor?” Sylvain asked, and Miklan was looking at him like he wanted to ask him the same thing.

“She found him wandering around the Monastery,” Felix _helpfully_ answered for him, “Then she refereed a spar between the two of us.”

“ _Really_ , Felix? The first thing you do after being reunited with your brother is _fight_ him? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Shut up, Sylvain. Not all of us can just hide in our rooms crying about this sort of thing all day. Some of us actually _care_ about our training.”

“Hey! Uncalled for, Fe!”

While their brothers started bickering in a way that Dimitri’s facial expression told him was typical for the two of them, Glenn caught Miklan’s eye, and found him smirking.

“I was wondering why it looked like you’d lost a fight,” he said. “Turns out that was exactly what happened.”

“Would you prefer if I _won_ a fight? Against my own little brother?”

“C’mon, Glenn. We both know you don’t care who you’re fighting. You’ve pummelled _me_ a bunch of times after all. No way you’d hold back just because you’re fighting family.”

“Have you ever considered that you just have a very punchable face?”

Glenn felt Felix tense up again, and he joined him in practically jumping when he heard sudden, uncontrollable laughter from the other side of the room; judging by the looks on Miklan and Sylvain’s faces, they were in pretty much the same boat. They all turned to look at Dimitri, who had obviously been trying to hide his laughter behind his hand but was now laughing so hard he couldn’t contain it any longer, his shoulders shaking as he leaned forward bracing himself on his own knee to keep from falling out of his chair.

“M-my apologies,” Dimitri said in between lingering bouts of giggles. “I hadn’t meant to interrupt. Please, just ignore me…”

“You really expect us to just ignore you, boar?”

“Yeah, Your Highness; I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh like that in… Well, just about forever.”

Hearing that made Glenn’s heart ache. Sure, Dimitri had been a pretty quiet, shy kid, but— had things really been so bad that he hadn’t even let loose and _laughed_ in all that time?

He didn’t get a chance to linger on that thought, though, because Felix crossed his arms and practically puffed up like an angry cat, glaring at Dimitri like he was about five seconds from gutting him.

“What’s so _amusing_ to you, anyway?” he asked, and Dimitri covered his mouth to try to stop his giggling as he sat up. He was trying hard, that much was obvious, but the occasional snort or shiver in his shoulders still gave him away.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, _completely_ unable to hide how _pleased_ he sounded, and unlike Felix and whatever stick he had up _his_ ass about Dimitri, Glenn was happy to hear it. He’d been so serious just a little while ago, it had almost seemed more like a business transaction than a reunion… “It’s just… Nice, I suppose. Seeing all four of you together like this. I had never even thought of it as a possibility, but…”

There was a silence following that which was too much on the heavy side for Glenn’s liking, not that he could blame anyone. He’d spent a long time coming to terms with the fact that leaving with Miklan and doing what he had done meant he would probably never see his family again. He was glad he’d proven himself wrong, but… There were so many ways it could have gone wrong, or just not happened at all, so it was easy to see where a statement like that was coming from.

“...It’s quite obvious that you’re family. Although I find it quite amusing that you all argue with each other the same way. I wonder if that’s inherited, somehow?”

“I take it back, boar. I’m perfectly fine with ignoring you.”

That started Dimitri laughing again, and Glenn couldn’t help but laugh, too, at seeing the way Felix was turning red. It was one of those perfect moments— the kind that made you think that no matter what was happening, everything was going to turn out okay.

Which, in Glenn’s experience, was the absolute worst kind of false sense of security to be lulled into.

Thankfully the sound of a door opening and closing— not _quite_ a slam but not far from it— was enough to shatter the moment.

It startled everyone, and Dimitri looked around almost frantically. It took Glenn a second to realize what had just happened…

“Ingrid?” Dimitri looked back over his shoulder at the closed door, then turned to the rest of the room. “My apologies, but I should—”

“I’ll go talk to her.”

Glenn didn’t really know what he was doing— hadn’t even given it any thought until the words had come out of his mouth, but he’d had enough sitting around, being anxious, and thinking too much for one day.

“G-Glenn? Are you… Certain?” Dimitri asked.

“Yeah… Not sure that’s the greatest idea…” Sylvain followed up, but Glenn was already up and out of his seat and heading for the door, giving them both a smile as he passed.

“I’m sure,” he said. “You guys just catch up, I’ll be back in no time, yeah?”

He didn’t wait to hear any kind of response before he slipped out of the room.

The door they had entered through was carefully hidden behind a pantry shelf, which he was equally careful to close gently behind him. He had no idea why the Monastery staff had a break room behind a hidden door, but he supposed it was just like a place like Garreg Mach to have all sorts of secrets like that—

What would he and Miklan have found if they’d actually gotten a chance to go to school here, rather than running around across the continent swinging weapons for coin? What kind of mischief could they have gotten into?

Ah, well. There was no point dwelling on thoughts like that. What if’s and could have been’s wouldn’t do anyone much good…

He walked back in the same direction they had come from, having no idea where going in the other direction would lead him, and figuring getting lost along the way wouldn’t really help with the whole ‘following Ingrid’ thing any more than going the wrong way would…

Thankfully he bumped into Dedue— quite literally.

He had looked over his shoulder for just a _second_ , wondering if maybe he _should_ have gone the other way, because how could she have gotten so far ahead so quickly? And then all of a sudden he’d been bouncing off someone’s chest, accompanied by the sound of a rattling tea service.

“Glenn— are you alright? Here, let me help you up.”

Balancing the tea tray on one hand and extending the other to him, Dedue practically hauled Glenn to his feet with ease, which was pretty impressive even if Glenn wasn’t the biggest guy out there—

“Sorry, Dedue. I should keep a better eye on where I’m going,” he said, dusting off his clothes, although he wasn’t sure it was actually doing anything given the state of them on a good day. “I was looking for Ingrid. She didn’t happen to come by here, did she?”

“She did, in just as much of a hurry as you,” he replied. “If you are looking for her, you might wish to check the stables.”

“Oh! Thanks, Dedue.” He gave him a quick pat on the shoulder as he carefully maneuvered his way around him— the hallway would have been narrow for two regular sized men, but Dedue took up almost all of it by himself, and he was holding tea that Glenn had already nearly knocked over.

“Glenn— a moment.”

He had been just about to take off at a jog, hoping to catch up with Ingrid before he ended up wandering lost around the monastery _again_ , when Dedue said that. And, well…

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Perhaps it’s not my place to say, but I would advise you to tread lightly. His Highness and the others have spoken of you a great deal, and I can already tell that your sudden arrival has caused a stir. They have already been through quite a number of ordeals since the year began. It would be… _Ill-advised_ for you to add to their troubles, rather than alleviating them.”

Glenn _legitimately_ couldn’t tell if he meant that as a threat or not— his tone was calm and even, his face was severe, but he’d looked much the same before he’d gone to get the tea so it was entirely possible that was just the way his face looked, just like how Miklan always looked like he was scowling even when he was in a perfectly fine mood.

It probably wasn’t worth worrying about, either way. If he _did_ do something that ended up hurting Felix or Dimitri any more than he already had, he probably deserved whatever he had coming to him.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in response. “Thanks for the advice. Better get on before the tea gets cold. See you later.”

Before anything else could delay him, Glenn took back off after Ingrid.

One thing at a time.

Glenn still felt nervous moving around the monastery grounds unaccompanied— he was pretty sure Dimitri and the others would vouch for him if one of the knights _did_ decide to give him a hard time, but he was much more keen on just avoiding it in the first place if he could.

Thankfully the stables weren’t that hard to find— he was actually getting pretty good at navigating the place, and since he’d seen people taking their horses in one direction from the market, figuring out where the stables was was pretty easy from there.

A few students were milling around tending to the horses, including a blue-haired girl talking quietly to one and a redheaded boy boasting loudly about the sheen of his steed’s coat to a purple-haired boy, but he ignored them and they didn’t notice or didn’t care about him anyway. Since none of them were Ingrid, the feeling was mutual.

He went beyond where the horses were stabled, and found himself at another row, this one with wider doors— presumably to accommodate the wide wingspans of the pegasi housed in each one.

“Good girl…” He heard Ingrid before he saw her, and when he rounded the corner she was standing there with one of the pegasi, gently running her hand along its snout.

He stood back and simply watched for a minute, leaning against the wall at the edge of the stables, just watching her tend to her pegasus— although it didn’t even seem like there was much ‘tending’ going on.

Ingrid had always liked horses, to the point that he remembered babysitting her along with Felix and Sylvain and having a Hell of a time keeping her away from the Fraldarius stables lest she end up getting trampled. It wasn’t surprising that he’d been told to track her down here. And she was so caught up in it that the tension and upset that had been written all over her face and body language had melted away completely.

He almost felt guilty interrupting her when he knew he was the reason she was upset in the first place, but…

“Hey, Ingrid.”

She jumped like he’d stabbed her in the back or something, whirling around to face him. Her pegasus nickered, displeased by having her attention snatched away.

“Glenn,” she said, sounding almost breathless. “Don’t— _scare_ me like that.”

“Sorry,” he said, chuckling, because it was admittedly pretty adorable.

Ingrid frowned at him, a disapproving, almost pouty look, but it quickly hardened back into that inscrutable ‘upset’ expression she’d been wearing since he walked up to her and Dimitri.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked, voice flat as she refused to look him in the eye.

“I just— wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “You rushed out of there like something was on fire.”

“I’m fine,” she replied immediately. “I simply couldn’t see how I was of any use to the conversation, so I thought my time would be better spent out here.”

It really didn’t take much to figure out that was a lie. He hadn’t seen Ingrid since she was five years old, hadn’t seen enough of her yet to know how she thought, but it was still obvious enough.

“Yeah, it was getting kind of stuffy in there,” Glenn said, figuring that for now the best thing to do was play along, since he really didn’t see any benefit to— calling her out, or whatever else he _could_ do in this situation. “I’m not really good at that sort of stuff, all of that planning and organizing, so I figured I’d take a look around.”

“Well, feel free,” Ingrid said. “Though I thought you would be more concerned about the knights.”

“Not really,” he lied. “I’m sure Miklan and Dimitri will get all of that figured out. I’m not the greatest at that sort of thing— I lost my knack for it a long time ago.”

He wasn’t sure he ever had one to begin with, actually— his father was a born diplomat, patient and soft-spoken and willing to walk on eggshells. Glenn had mirrored him easily enough, and had learned all the proper rules and etiquette expected of a noble heir and future knight, but he was pretty sure he would have sucked at _real_ politics if he ever got a chance to try.

Glenn wasn’t the sort of person who could hold back from telling people when they were being an asshole, after all. And that described most of the Faerghus nobility he would have had to bend and scrape to in order to keep the peace.

“You really shouldn’t call His Highness by name like that,” Ingrid said, frowning harshly at him. “As a citizen of Faerghus—”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m not legally considered a citizen of Faerghus anymore. I’m pretty sure that got revoked when I gave up any claim to my land or title. In fact, I’m not sure I’m even allowed to call myself a Fraldarius anymore.”

Glenn had no idea why all of that came out all at once, but whatever— there was no turning back now.

“Really, Glenn? Even if that _was_ true, that’s no excuse for being disrespectful.”

“How am I being disrespectful? I just find it strange to call someone by their title when I’ve known them since they were born. Besides, Dimitri didn’t seem to mind.”

“Just because you knew him when he was a baby, doesn’t mean you can just— _flaunt_ that. I’ve known him just as long and I _know better_. And I’ve actually been _around_ him in the meantime.”

Aaaand there it was. Glenn forced himself not to wince at that. He’d done enough recoiling in shame for a lifetime, in his opinion.

“To just show up out of nowhere one day and speaking to His Highness like you’ve known him all his life is the _epitome_ of disrespect. Though I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less from someone who abandoned every ideal of knighthood to run off and become a— a _sellsword_.”

Glenn, in perhaps his smartest move so far that day, kept his mouth shut and let Ingrid say her piece. Not that he really felt like he could argue against any of it. Maybe the parts about being disrespectful, but—

Well, what did he know? It was just like Ingrid had said. She was the one who had been by Dimitri’s side his entire life; he had run off to become a sellsword.

They stood there in silence for several long moments until Ingrid crossed her arms and said, “Well? Don’t you have anything to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “It’s not like I can argue against anything you’re saying. We might have a difference of opinion about some things, but you’re right. I did abandon the knighthood and become a sellsword. I probably made a lot of people’s lives a lot harder— my father’s, Felix’s, Dimitri’s, yours… Not to mention I stole Sylvain’s brother from him. So if you want an apology—”

“No, Glenn, I don’t.”

He was only somewhat surprised by how quickly she cut him off. He’d had a feeling words weren’t going to be nearly enough.

There was a lot of that going around.

“What do you want from me, then? If it’s something I can give you, I will. I know I fucked up. I know that showing up right now was inconvenient of me; that’s been made plenty clear. But I swear to the Goddess I’m not trying to make anyone’s lives more difficult; I just want to make some kind of amends. So if there’s something I can do for you, just tell me.”

He knew as he was saying it that it was a bad idea to put it all out there like that. It wasn’t fair to Ingrid, and he knew that. But at the same time, while he didn’t know her— not anymore, not enough to make a call like that— he did know knights. Had grown up around them, had far too many run ins with them during his time as a mercenary.

Knights didn’t talk about things. Knights repressed things and shoved everything down and called it tranquility, or devotion, or whatever other stupid word they wanted to use for it. He’d watched his father do it his entire life; yet another reason he knew he would never have made a good knight. It would have killed him to live his life like that, if the battlefield didn’t do it first.

So if he had to force the issue, so be it. And the fact that Ingrid hadn’t said two words to him, had just stood off to the side watching him like she had, told him that she was the sort who wanted to push everything down and not talk about it, just like his father…

“I don’t want anything from you, Glenn,” Ingrid replied, still glaring at him. “You don’t owe me anything. You made your choices. I have no desire to get in the way of your life. All I’m wondering is why you so suddenly decided to show up again.”

“Why I came back now, or why I came back at all?” Glenn asked, then before she could answer, continued with, “I came back now because I knew I could, without Miklan or I being at risk. Garreg Mach is neutral ground; Margrave Gautier can’t make trouble for us here, or any of the other Faerghus nobility who feels like doing so. At least, not right away, and not the way he would be able to if we just showed up in Gautier territory.”

He had far too many memories of watching Miklan, out of the corner of his eye, writing a letter to his brother that he knew he would never read. It had hurt him to leave Sylvain behind, but he’d still done it, for Glenn’s sake. No— for _their_ sake. So they could be together, and their lives could be their own. He knew exactly what kind of sacrifice it was, because he’d made the exact same one.

Of course, _he_ probably could have gone home at any time, or at least wouldn’t have run the risk of ending up in jail or worse for it. It had been a long time since he’d seen his father, and maybe he had rose tinted glasses when it came to his memories of him, but he wasn’t the sort of person who would do something like that, in Glenn’s opinion. Whereas Margrave Gautier always had been, and _everyone_ knew it.

Miklan never had that option. And it had seemed— _unfair_ of him to even think about doing what Miklan could never do, of having his cake and eating it too, and leaving Miklan with nothing. Either they both got their families back, or neither of them did. And maybe that wasn’t fair to Felix, but… well, no matter what, it would have been unfair to _someone_ , and he’d chosen the person who had stuck by him and loved him for over a decade. It hadn’t been an easy choice, but it had been the only choice.

“And I came back at all because I missed Felix. Like I said, I wanted a chance to apologize— if not make right what I did, then at least let him, and Dimitri, and _you_ know that it wasn’t an easy decision, and I am genuinely sorry for how it must have affected all of you.”

Felix especially, but he didn’t think he needed to say that out loud. He was sure all three of them had suffered because of his decision. Felix had to deal with losing him, and with suddenly having the burden of being the heir of House Fraldarius on his shoulders, but he’d been close to Dimitri and Ingrid as well. He was supposed to be Dimitri’s knight— his stalwart protector and closest confidant, just like his father was for King Lambert. He was glad that Dimitri had found someone else to fill that role— and Dedue, from what little he’d seen of him, did a damn good job of it— but he was sure that it had left Dimitri feeling abandoned too. And Ingrid—

If things had gone how they were ‘supposed’ to, the two of them would be married right now. That was, according to his father, the way things had to be, which had been one of the reasons he’d decided that his only choice was to leave. No matter how much his father loved him— he knew trying to fight against his adherence to tradition was fighting a losing battle.

Of course, Glenn knew exactly how _he_ felt about the whole thing— but he had no idea how _Ingrid_ felt about it. They’d been betrothed, engaged to be married, since she was a baby, and she’d still been a little kid when he’d left, but…

Well, the longer he thought about it, the most he realized he truly didn’t know _anything_ about her. And he wasn’t about to start making assumptions.

“You’re sorry for how it affected all of us,” Ingrid repeated, voice flat. “But you’re not sorry for leaving in the first place, are you?”

Glenn paused for a moment to think about the question. Then, deciding that honesty was still the best policy, he said, “No, I’m not. And in the same situation, even knowing what I know now, I would probably make the same decision all over again. Even if it was a difficult choice, I still stand by it.”

“ _That’s_ what I can’t understand.” Ingrid shook her head, crossing her arms and staring down at her shoes. “You can say that you’re sorry for abandoning us, and I believe that you are, even if you would do it all again. I simply… Can’t understand _why_ you left in the first place. You had a loving father, you wanted for nothing, and you were destined to become one of the most valiant and revered knights in the Kingdom, just like him. Why would you simply leave all that behind to sell your skills on the road?”

She didn’t have to outline her envy for him to hear it in her voice, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t annoyed by it— and felt sorry for her at the same time. Of course, he could see where she was coming from. The Galatea family, even though they were noble, didn’t have much wealth and comparatively little status.

To her, his life must have looked pretty great— especially since by the time she was old enough to start having thoughts like that, he hadn’t been around to say anything to the contrary. And he knew he had it better than most. He could have been like Miklan, with parents who hated him because of something out of his control, ready to throw him away the moment it became convenient.

“I… Had my reasons, Ingrid. I’m sure you’ve seen by now that all the money and status in the world can’t change some things. In fact, they can sometimes make the shackles even tighter. And some of those things are worth giving all of that up for.”

He couldn’t help but fiddle with his ring while he was talking. It was a nervous habit he’d picked up over the years— in situations where it wasn’t appropriate to have a death grip on his sword, at least, because he found that just as, if not _more_ , comforting.

It was also a pretty _concrete_ reminder of why he had left, and why he would make the same choice all over again, even if it meant years of sleepless nights and doubts and knowing he was hurting people he loved.

Like he’d said— some things were just… Worth it.

Ingrid had a sharp eye— probably used to watching for enemy movements on the battlefield. Children in Faerghus could wield a weapon before they could sign their own names. Glenn hadn’t realized until Fraldarius territory was no longer even a speck on the horizon how ridiculous it was for him to have been sparring against his own brother when he was _five_.

He wondered if Ingrid wanted more than just money and status— if she wanted to be what he had been destined to be. A royal knight of Faerghus. He’d only really known her for about an hour now, but he could tell she’d be good at it. Even if he thought the knighthood was utter bullshit.

But right now, Ingrid wasn’t using that sharp eye to take someone out with a lance— thankfully, since he was the only one around, and he didn’t feel like getting stabbed.

Her eyes were locked onto his hand where he was playing with his ring.

When he realized that, he suppressed the urge to pull it off, or shove his hand somewhere she couldn’t see. That sense of shame that had come from crawling through book after book looking for stories of people like him, from hearing his father tell him that him marrying Ingrid was just how things had to be— he’d thought he’d gotten rid of it a long time ago, when he had left the nobility and all of its restrictions behind, but apparently it had just been sitting back and waiting for something to remind him of everything he had run away from.

And apparently his childhood fiance was the trigger that they were waiting for.

He fought off that urge by staring at his ring, remembering everything that it represented. The choices that he had made, not only for the sake of his survival and his freedom, but for the sake of love. And he didn’t normally think of himself as a particularly sappy person, but the list of things he _wouldn’t_ do for Miklan…

Well, it was a very short list.

“My father used to talk a lot about how there were some things that just had to be,” he said, still staring at his ring. It was the farthest thing from fancy. He and Miklan had taken their meager scrapings from their early, shitty jobs, when they had been unproven teenagers who no one had any faith in, and had bought the first rings they had found in some tiny Alliance town to take to the local church. The only people who had seen their wedding were the priest who had married them, and the local magistrate, who had been their witness and had made certain that everything was legal— or as legal as anything ever was when you were a pair of wandering mercenaries with no home or family.

It had been the happiest day of his life, and thinking back on it gave him the confidence he needed to look her in the eye as he continued.

“I didn’t like that answer. There were so many things I wanted to do that I just… Couldn’t, because of the family I was born into and what was expected of me. So I weighed what I wanted out of life against what was expected of me and made the only decision I thought I could.”

“...Miklan.”

The way Ingrid said it was like she was coming to a sudden realization. Her eyes went back to those dinner plate eyes he had seen earlier. Then, suddenly, she looked away and went back to the sad-looking almost wallflowery expression she’d had before she’d stormed out.

“I… Suppose I had suspected something like that. People had quite a few things to say about the two of you, but I never quite knew what to believe.”

“Yeah, I can imagine people had a _lot_ to say about us.”

He was amused and angry at the same time. Glenn didn’t care about what anyone had to say about _him_ ; the only thing that kept him bound to Faerghus at all was Felix. But the idea of a bunch of noble idiots badmouthing Miklan made his blood boil. As though they hadn’t done enough to him already…

“It had nothing to do with you,” he said, suddenly realizing what might have been going through her mind.

Neither of them had any say in their engagement— in fact, even by the time Glenn had broken it off by running away, Ingrid had still been so young that she probably didn’t even understand what it _meant_. But he knew what being a part of the Faerghus nobility had been like.

If Ingrid was upset with him for running off instead of becoming the knight his father wanted him to be, there was every chance that she had bought into the whole thing— everything about being a good and proper noble, marrying well and having children to carry on your Crest and your family name, and to Hell with love and whatever _you_ wanted. In fact, if you were a good son or daughter of Faerghus, you didn’t question it or act like you wanted anything but what you were told you were _supposed_ to want.

Ingrid sighed and shook her head. “I know,” she said. “My father was far more upset about that than I was, I assure you. I had much more important things to be angry with you for.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Glenn said, shaking his head. “But if it means anything to you, I don’t plan on going back to Faerghus, but… I’m also not planning on leaving, at least not without warning, and not like I did last time.”

“I… Suppose that’s a start,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand, but… It’s good to have you back, Glenn.”

“It’s good to be back,” he replied and realized at the same moment that despite all of the stress and uncertainty and the fact that he’d literally gotten punched in the face, he meant it

“You should head back. I’m sure His Highness is eager to speak with you some more.”

The way she said it, especially as she crossed her arms, made it clear that it wasn’t exactly a suggestion so much as a stern order— but all the same, Glenn felt the need to ask,

“Not coming with me?”

“I was serious about not being able to do much,” she said, giving her head a shake. “But if His Highness or Felix or Sylvain needs me, I’ll be here. Though I suspect by the time you get back, they’ll already have some idea of what they’re going to do about you and Miklan.”

“I hope so,” Glenn said, because otherwise, he really didn’t know what he was going to do.

But he’d spent the last decade just sort of going with the flow, and he wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of that.


	9. miklan

“...Miklan?”

“You at home in there?”

Miklan only barely suppressed the urge to slap away the hand being waved in front of his face with real force, instead giving it a gentle warning smack. If it had been anyone but Sylvain, he wouldn’t have held back like that.

Of course, he probably deserved it, considering they were having an important conversation about how _not_ to get him and Glenn kicked out of Garreg Mach, and he’d gotten completely distracted.

“Sorry,” he said giving his head a shake. “Got lost in thought there. What were you saying?”

“I was simply wondering what you and Glenn plan to do while you’re here,” Dimitri repeated. “We’re happy to have you here, of course. But I imagine you don’t want to stay hiding in a kitchen cupboard forever.”

Miklan felt Sylvain tense up next to him, and reflexively reached over to put a hand between his shoulders blades as he leaned back, folding his other arm behind his head.

“We’re mercs,” he said. “We’ve done just about everything under the sun for coin— within reason. We’ll find something to do, don’t worry about that. I’m more concerned about the whole ‘suspicious character’ thing.”

“The knights and monks of Garreg Mach are particularly stubborn when it comes to such things,” Dedue commented. The Duscur man had been mostly silent the entire time, but as soon as he spoke, he had Dimitri’s immediate attention— and Miklan’s, since he apparently had useful things to say. “So far we’ve only discussed the knights, but I believe the monks will prove difficult as well. They are observant, and spend far more time around the monastery.”

Miklan had a feeling he was speaking from experience— not surprising, considering he was the only person from Duscur he’d seen since arriving, and one of the few he’d ever seen period. Duscur was a small nation to begin with, and after what had happened with the king, even fewer people travelled into or out of the region.

Miklan didn’t have a ton of memories of King Lambert as a person— his shitheel of a father had made sure his Crestless failure of a son kept away from the politics as much as possible— but he’d always had the image of him as a kind person. Too good to run the likes of Faerghus, for sure. Even though he’d only heard about what had happened weeks after the fact— the side effect of wandering around all of Fodlan with no easy source of information— he was sure it had been a shitshow.

It probably would have been even _more_ of one if the assassination attempt had worked. Something he tried not to think about too much— not because of Lambert, or even Dimitri, as bad as he felt thinking that _now_ when the kid was sitting right in front of him. But because he was well aware that Glenn, having been trained pretty much from birth to be knight to the heir of Faerghus, would have been there with all of the other knights who had died to protect them.

The expression on Dimitri’s face darkened in a way that made even _Miklan_ shudder. The change was instant— and drastic.

He couldn’t help but notice Sylvain looking away— and Felix staring at him even more intently.

“Many of the monks here indeed have a very _narrow_ view of the world,” Dimitri said, his voice pitching down in an almost threatening way. “You’re right, Dedue. They may pose more of a problem for us than the knights…”

Miklan already didn’t want to get on the bad side of the crown prince of Faerghus, when he’d spent a huge chunk of his life so far trying to keep as far away from the nobility as possible and keep out of their notice, but he especially didn’t want to now. At least Dimitri seemed to have his head on straight…

He knew he should be focusing on the long-term problem of the monks either throwing them out of the monastery or worse, news of their arrival somehow reaching the Margrave, but all he could think about was the fact that Glenn had been gone for a long time, considering he had just gone to chase after Ingrid…

“Well, if the monks are our biggest problem, we know exactly who can deal with _that_ , right? So that shouldn’t really be a problem.”

“What are you talking about, Sylvain?”

Miklan’s head snapped up where it had started to droop as he got lost in thought (thoughts he probably shouldn’t be having, considering Glenn really hadn’t been gone that long… Maybe the prince’s paranoia was starting to rub off on him), and he stared at Sylvain expectantly.

“Well, think about it, Your Highness. Who here isn’t afraid to tell off the monks and is close enough with the folks in charge that she basically _never_ gets in trouble?”

“Sylvain, you can’t possibly expect us to ask _Professor Byleth_ for her assistance on this matter,” Dimitri said, staring at Sylvain with those dinner plate eyes, that dark expression replaced so suddenly Miklan barely held back an undignified laugh— not that he’d ever cared about appearing _dignified_. “It would be completely inappropriate—”

“Why? You and I both know the Professor doesn’t care about anything like that. And she’s always telling us that she’s happy to help us with anything we need help with.”

Dimitri didn’t look convinced— in fact, from the frown on his face, Miklan would venture a guess that he was about to start lecturing Sylvain, except Felix chose that moment to say,

“He’s right, boar. The Professor would have far more of a solution for this than any of us sitting around talking about it to death could ever have. And Glenn already got her involved.” Felix scoffed. “Unless you’re _afraid_ of asking her for help? It’s not like you to want to keep something from her, especially not something this big.”

Dedue was giving Felix an undisguised, unpleasant look, but Miklan was far more amused by the way Dimitri blushed and started frowning even harder.

“This is not about hiding _anything_ from her,” he said firmly. “I just think it’s inappropriate to get her involved in our personal problems when she already has so much else to worry about.”

“Like Felix said, she’s already gotten involved. It can’t hurt to ask, can it?”

There was a glimmer in Sylvain’s eye, a certain twist at the corner of his mouth, that reminded Miklan too much of some of the less pleasant nobles he’d dealt with in the course of his mercenary career— but whether it was because that kind of skill was now on his side, or because it was Sylvain instead of someone trying to fuck him over, Miklan was more amused than anything else.

“You do what you want,” Felix said with a shake of his head as he got up from his seat. “If you have no interest in helping, then suit yourself. But I’m tired of sitting around here talking. I’m going to go find the Professor.”

“Wait up, Fe; I’m coming with you.” Sylvain paused to look at Miklan. “You coming?”

“What, you expect me to sit around here by my lonesome?”

Even saying that, he didn’t like the idea of leaving when Glenn wouldn’t know where to find them— they had been splitting up and losing each other all day, far too much for his liking. Maybe it was just the fact that the two of them hadn’t been apart, really apart, for very long— not since they had struck out on their own. Not that a few hours really meant anything in the long run, but… Considering the rest of the stress they’d both gone through with this whole ordeal, it felt _weird_.

Glenn would probably call him a codependent idiot, but hey. He’d married him, so that was Glenn’s problem now.

He got up to follow Sylvain anyway, figuring that Ingrid wouldn’t let him wander around getting lost in the monastery no matter how upset she obviously was, but he felt a hand on his arm, signalling him to stop.

“Miklan,” Dimitri said. “May I have a word with you?”

Miklan had no idea why, but he felt his stomach clench up as soon as Dimitri said that. Thankfully he was good at keeping his face neutral.

“Something wrong, Your Highness?”

Sylvain asked before he had a chance to, pausing in the doorway, looking back and forth between him and Dimitri. He raised an eyebrow at Miklan like he was trying to ask him something without using words.

“Not at all,” Dimitri replied, giving a smile that couldn’t have been more obviously fake. “I simply have a few more questions, that’s all.”

Sylvain hesitated in the doorway, then looked like he was going to come right back in, when Dimitri gave him a shake of the head.

“You should follow after Felix,” he said. “Before he gets too much of a headstart. We wouldn’t want his temper to get the better of him when speaking with the Professor.”

Sylvain looked very uncertain, and looked over at Miklan, who nodded.

They both knew Dimitri was lying, but whatever he really had up his sleeve, Miklan didn’t want Sylvain involved— and besides, he really wasn’t that worried.

Dimitri had been a good kid, and he had a good dad. He was relying on that carrying him to the present day.

“Alright. Don’t take too long,” Sylvain said, sounding unsure, before following Felix just as Dimitri had told him to do.

And then it was just Miklan, Dimitri, and Dedue.

“Alright.” He sighed as he rolled his neck to crack it, turning to the prince. “What’s this really about?”

“Pardon?”

“That excuse you gave Sylvain wasn’t even really an excuse and we both know it. So whatever you really want to talk to me about, let’s get this over with, kid.”

“You should speak to His Highness with more respect,” Dedue said warningly, his arms crossed and his height making him loom even when he was just standing there, just because he’d changed his stance a little bit. It was a neat trick. Miklan wondered if he could teach him how to do that.

“Relax, Dedue.” Dimitri chuckled, and at least that sounded more genuine than his smile had looked. “I assure you, I’m not bothered. And that’s just the sort of person Miklan is. It’s actually refreshing to see you haven’t changed much in all these years.”

“I’m surprised you remember me at all,” Miklan replied honestly. “You were barely out of diapers the last time I saw you, and the Margrave made sure it wasn’t often that I got to.” 

“I suppose I just have a sharp memory,” Dimitri said, giving him that tight fake smile again, but it quickly slipped off his face. “That means I also remember what it was like when you and Glenn left. What it was like for all of us. How devastated Felix and Sylvain were.”

Miklan nodded, if only to suppress how badly he wanted to wince at that. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about the repercussions of what they had done. He knew Glenn had too, even if they’d never really spoken about it, not until they had decided on a whim to take off for Garreg Mach— just in time for his birthday, at that.

Hearing it from someone else, someone who had actually been there, even if Dimitri had been even younger than Sylvain at the time— it hurt in its own special way, though.

“We may have drifted apart a bit since those days, but they’re both very special to me,” Dimitri continued, either unaware of his mental struggle, or perhaps not caring— which was fair enough, he supposed. “They _are_ two of my closest friends, after all. And the last thing I want is to see either of them get hurt.”

“You and me both, kid.” After seeing Sylvain brush him off, then seeing him crying not long after? Miklan knew somewhere deep inside of himself, somewhere _fundamental_ , that he would do anything to keep it from happening again— and he knew Glenn well enough to know he felt the same.

“I’m glad we see eye to eye on the matter,” Dimitri said, and something about the way he said it— the tone of his voice, or maybe the sharpness of his blue eyes— told Miklan that it wasn’t quite genuine, either. “In fact, that’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.”

It hit him suddenly, like a punch to the gut, or maybe more like Glenn’s elbow in his face suddenly startling him awake. He’d known this wasn’t the friendly chat Dimitri had said it was— now he knew what it actually was.

An interrogation.

With that in mind, he actually felt a lot better. He’d been interrogated by people with a Hell of a lot worse intentions than Prince Dimitri, and he’d come out unscathed, for the most part. And two kids— even one as strong as the Blaiddyd heir and another one who was even bigger than him— didn’t worry him all that much, if things came to violence. Not that he anticipated they would.

Unless he fucked up royally, which was why he crossed his arms, stared at Dimitri intently, and listened carefully.

“Alright then, Your Highness. Let’s talk, then.”

“What exactly were your intentions showing up here? And why now?” Dimitri asked, skipping straight to the point now that there was obviously no pretenses between the two of them.

“Me and Glenn just wanted to see our brothers,” Miklan answered honestly. Honesty wasn’t always the best policy, and he was a _damn_ good liar when he _wanted_ to be, but he had nothing to hide. “We were on a job routing some bandits that were attacking trade caravans, about two days’ ride from here. We’ve always kept our ears close to the ground for any news about Sylvain and Felix, so when we heard some folks talking about how many important noble kids were at the Monastery this year, we did some digging. And when we knew they were here, Glenn suggested we split with our group for a bit and ride out here to see if we could get in to see them.”

“Why not sooner? It’s been more than ten years. Surely you could have found ample time to visit before now.”

“Yeah, except remember the whole thing about me _not_ wanting to get arrested by my father for setting foot anywhere _near_ Sylvain?” Miklan shook his head. “We don’t even set foot in Faerghus if we can help it, or at least not beyond the farthest outskirts of the border. Glenn would be fine, but I have no doubt the Margrave would be happy to see me rot in a cell for the rest of my life, or worse.”

“Do you really think the rest of us would have allowed that to happen?”

“Do _you_ really think any of you could stop him?” Miklan chuckled, but it wasn’t a pleasant or humour-filled sound. “Trust me, I know your dad and Rodrigue are probably the only reason I didn’t get kicked out of the family a _lot_ sooner, but I’m sure you know by now that most of Faerghus isn’t like them, and even the King can only do so much. Not that my father would let a word of it ever get that far. He’d take care of me with his own two hands before that.”

A grim thought, but one he’d known had been true from the start, and the recent confirmation that not a single one of his letters— no matter how secretly delivered— had ever reached Sylvain only proved it further.

He was nothing to his father. Less than nothing. Not only was he a Crestless failure of an heir, he’d embarrassed him by dragging Glenn down with him, and he’d put ideas into Sylvie’s head that there was any chance of a life that didn’t involve the Margrave’s carefully laid plans.

“The knights and monks might be suspicious here, but even if the news did reach my father because someone ratted me out, he wouldn’t be able to do much while we’re here. Punishing me for trespassing or some other made-up bullshit on his own turf would be one thing, but he doesn’t have that kind of sway here. Getting caught here is a lot less dangerous than getting anywhere Gautier territory, or even Fhirdiad.”

Dimitri was silent; at some point he’d closed his eyes and crossed his arms, and he was looking downwards, as if caught in deep thought. Miklan could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

“There has been… A great deal of unrest at the Monastery since our year here began,” Dimitri said finally. “Much of it life threatening. Hence my caution. I’m sure you understand.”

Miklan didn’t do anything but nod, but he felt his blood boiling. Right. The students of Garreg Mach had live combat— it _was_ a military academy, after all. He had already known that. But hearing directly from one of the students that there had been multiple life threatening incidents— and that _Sylvain_ was included in that number— made his blood boil.

If he hadn’t been so desperate to stay on the Church’s good side so he could stick close to Sylvain, there would have been a lot of yelling going on.

“Especially considering that our mission this month directly involves House Gautier.”

His head snapped up at that, his eyebrows furrowing even as they snapped open wide. He was sure he looked hilarious, but he had other things to worry about. “What?”

“So you truly didn’t know…”

“Your Highness… Is it truly advisable to speak so freely about this?”

“It’s alright, Dedue,” Dimitri said, almost gently, a huge contrast to the steely, authoritative, almost threatning way he’d been talking so far. “Regardless of what other questions I might have for Miklan, I’m convinced he had no idea about the unrest in Gautier territory until right now. In fact, he may be able to provide us some valuable insight.”

Normally it would have irritated Miklan to no end to have someone talking about him like he wasn’t in the room— his father had done a lot of that— but at the moment his head was practically spinning.

For his father, who had always prided himself on his strength, and who had prided himself even more in his ability to protect the border between Faerghus and Sreng for most of his life, to have a situation that he couldn’t handle alone and had to go to the Church for— what could be so bad that he had caved to something like _that_?

“I’ll be frank with you, Miklan.” Dimitri’s voice went right back to that hard steel edge. “I’m not convinced that your sudden return is entirely coincidental, and even less convinced that you have no ulterior motives. And even if your intentions _are_ completely pure, I know how easy it would be for you to simply disappear again, and how devastated Sylvain would be. I intend to keep a close eye on you, and while I can’t force you to stay, believe me when I say that I would _not_ look kindly upon you doing anything, intentional or otherwise, to hurt Sylvain.”

“You don’t trust me.” It was one of those things that felt almost too obvious to say, but he had to say it— had to hear Dimitri say the actual words.

“No, I don’t.”

He couldn’t stop the humourless lap that bubbled its way up and out of him.

“I’m sorry, but I fail to see the humour in the situation.”

“You and me both, kid.” Miklan shook his head. “Just thinking about how if I had been the one who’d left and Glenn was the one who was still here, you wouldn’t be having this conversation with him.”

“Excuse me?”

The look on Dimitri’s face said he didn’t know whether to look angry or confused. It was amusing enough that Miklan chuckled again, even as he was shaking his head.

“Don’t play dumb, kiddo. You’re not going to hurt my feelings or anything. We both know that I became public enemy number one in Faerghus the day I took Glenn away.”

Dimitri frowned more sternly at him. Miklan wondered if he was about to get a lecture, or maybe the prince was going to try to deny it. But instead he just stood there, staring at him expectantly, like he was waiting for him to finish what he had to say.

Good. He had plenty to say. And it was the perfect time to say it, while Glenn wasn’t around to hear it.

“When Sylvain and I came up to you, I could already tell you were suspicious of me. But when Glenn showed up, you looked at him like you were looking at a ghost.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head, carefully watching Dimitri’s face. He wondered if maybe even _he_ hadn’t realized it before now; he certainly looked like he was just as confused as when he’d started explaining. “Like I said, I don’t take it personally. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here.”

“I.. Miklan, I truly have no idea what you’re trying to say.” And the fact that his stern expression changed to one of genuine concern was proof enough of that, he supposed.

“It’s simple; if this was really about me being a merc, or about the fact that I disappeared for so long only to show up now, you would end up having this exact same conversation with Glenn. But I’m willing to bet the thought never even crossed your mind.”

Another moment of confusion; then, Dimitri’s expression fell as he looked to the ground.

He almost looked… _Ashamed_.

“That… Was not my intent. But… I suppose you’re right. It never crossed my mind to discuss this matter with Glenn…”

“Don’t feel bad, kid. Like I said, I get it.” He reached up to push his hair back out of his face and held it there with one hand. “The only person who gave a shit about me disappearing was Sylvie, but you always ran around after Glenn like he was the center of your universe, just like Felix did. Hell, practically the whole damn Kingdom admired him— not that any of the adults knew a fucking thing about him, but still.”

None of them had known Glenn was the sort of person who would give up everything he’d ever known just to be with him, after all. Fuck, even Miklan hadn’t known that, not for sure— not until he’d worked up the courage to ask that stormy night when he’d come to the realization that the idea of Glenn slipping through his fingers, forced into a loveless marriage and an early death for a Kingdom who didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone unless they were either perfect or dead, was just about the most horrible thing he could imagine.

“I took him from the rest of you. He wouldn’t have run off if it wasn’t for me— not that I think that’s a _good_ thing. But I get why you don’t like me.”

Glenn was just that sort of person— the kind of person who, even though he could be a major asshole sometimes, who was better at swinging a sword or a lance than he was at talking, still made you want to do anything for him. Who you always wanted to be around.

Was it selfish of him to have taken him all for himself, even if it had been for Glenn’s own good? Probably. But Miklan had never been bothered about being selfish before; he wasn’t about to start now.

“That being said, believe me when I say this, Your Highness: I love my brother, and I’ll do anything in my power to keep him from getting hurt, by myself or by anything else. I had no other reason for being here; all I want to do is try to earn his forgiveness for leaving him behind in that shithole of a home for so long. If you don’t _want_ to believe me, and want to keep an eye on me like you said, that’s fine. But hand to the Goddess, that’s the truth.”

By the time he finished, he felt winded, less like he’d just gone on a rant and more like he’d just made a hasty tactical retreat— but it was mostly because there had been a fearful grip in his chest the entire time.

He’d spent the last twelve years keeping his head low and avoiding making waves with the Faerghus nobility and yet here he was, calling out the prince of the entire goddess damned place!

He waited for Dimitri’s response, but he seemed completely lost in thought; he looked over to Dedue, who was frowning and looking severe, and none too pleased with him, but at least didn’t look like he was about to do anything drastic. He gave Miklan a stern look, then turned to Dimitri.

“Your Highness—”

“I’m sorry.”

Miklan’s head snapped back towards Dimitri when he heard that, his eyes widening, and then his brows furrowing.

“You’re right,” he continued before Miklan even had a chance to ask what he was on about. Which would have been a dumb question, because he knew what Dimitri was apologizing for; he just didn’t _expect_ it. “I certainly had my reasons for wanting to speak with you about the incident in Gautier territory, but thinking about it, everything you’ve said is completely correct— and that’s massively unfair to you.”

“Dimitri—”

“Your Highness—”

“I’ve missed Glenn terribly,” Dimitri continued, shaking his head. “I don’t think even I realized quite how much until I saw him again. It always seemed unfair, when it was Felix who had lost a brother. But I suppose… In some way, I did blame you for his leaving.”

“You’re not alone there. Pretty sure everyone did.” Of course, most of those people were rational adults who should have known better— although he wasn’t surprised that they didn’t. It was a lot more forgivable for a bunch of kids who wouldn’t have even known what was going on.

“Well. Now that we’ve got that settled, can we head out? I’d rather not get left behind.”

“O-oh! I— Yes, I suppose we should try to catch up…”

The look on Dimitri’s face was a lot better than the dark, scary look he’d been giving him earlier, but Miklan— against his better judgement— felt a sharp pang of guilt.

He looked a lot more like the kid Miklan remembered— fresh-faced, apple-cheeked, happily running around after his friends without a care in the world, not yet having any idea what the Kingdom had in store for all of them.

Miklan had been jealous of him back then, and Sylvie, and all of their other little friends. They had gotten at least a small taste of the childhood he’d never gotten to have— and aside from Sylvain, they’d all had families who actually gave a shit about them.

He’d moved past that, but seeing the look on Dimitri’s face— like a well-meaning child who had just been scolded— made the memories of those days rush back, alongside the guilt.

As he passed him heading for the door, Miklan put a firm hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. He could see Dedue tense out of the corner of his eye, and _felt_ Dimitri tense up under his hand, although he had a feeling those were for two very different reasons.

All he did was give Dimitri a squeeze and then a pat on the shoulder, resting his hand there as he jerked his thumb in the direction of the door.

“Then let’s get out of here before those two do something stupid, huh?”

He had no idea if it was comforting at all— or if comfort was even what Dimitri wanted. He had probably crossed a line or two, and not just because Dimitri was royalty; Miklan didn’t give a rat’s ass about that.

Dimitri had every reason to be suspicious of him, with or without Glenn being involved. And he’d mentioned something about Gautier territory… Something he hadn’t elaborated on, and something that was nagging at Miklan terribly, which was part of the reason he was trying to rush them out of there. The sooner this little interrogation was over, the sooner he could safely ask what it was he was talking about— preferably from Sylvain. The accusation that Dimitri just simply didn’t like him because of Glenn was oversimplifying things, but he’d seen it in his face from the moment he’d walked up to him— something in his eyes that Miklan was all too familiar with, but had never expected to see in the soft Prince of Faerghus that he barely remembered.

Hatred.

Oh well. It wasn’t something he could puzzle out then and there, so better not to worry about it. He had _other_ things to worry about, and since the list was getting pretty long, he didn’t feel like adding to it at the moment.

Right now he had something much more important to deal with— namely, making sure he didn’t get booted out on his ass.


	10. felix

“Felix! C’mon, Fe, wait up.”

Against his better judgement, when Felix left the dining hall and exited into the courtyard, he finally stopped to let Sylvain catch up— after listening to him whine about letting him do so all the way from their makeshift meeting room.

“I’m not going that fast, Sylvain.” Felix shook his head disapprovingly. “If you can’t even overtake me like this, you’re going to have a lot of problems on the battlefield.”

“Hey, can you blame me for being tired?” Sylvain folded his hands behind his head as he not only caught up but stepped out in front of him. “We spent all morning training, and then everything that’s happened since then has been completely and utterly exhausting— I haven’t even had a chance to sit down and have a real meal since breakfast.”

“If we’d gone to dinner like you’d told me we were going to, we wouldn’t have had any of those problems.”

“But we also wouldn’t have run into Miklan and Glenn like we did.”

Felix frowned at him, crossing his arms, and started to say something— then stopped, halfway into a non-starter of a syllable, when he realized he had no idea what he actually _wanted_ to say.

He hadn’t really stopped to think about how he felt about everything that had happened so far. He didn’t really _want_ to stop and think about it.

He genuinely thought he’d put everything about Glenn disappearing behind him years ago, the same way he had put his feelings about Dimitri behind him, his desire to please his father, and a lot more. He’d looked at Sylvain, who pretended to be completely fine and then every so often just crumbled— usually around Miklan’s birthday, so it amazed Felix that he’d been too thick to figure out what was going on and why he was so distracted, to the point that he thought he must have repressed it completely because even Sylvain wasn’t _that_ airheaded— and he’d felt good about how much better he was doing. He’d hardly ever thought about his brother, except when the occasional bitter reminder rose up that people only saw him as a second-rate heir, an imperfect version of his perfect brother.

Apparently those same feelings had just been lying in wait for a _stronger_ reminder than a date on a calendar, or a snide remark from a noble shoved halfway up his own ass. Seeing Glenn’s face, taking years of anger out on him, and then collapsing into him in tears…

It had been every bit as exhausting as Sylvain had been complaining about, but unlike Sylvain, Felix wasn’t the complaining type. He was more the ‘force himself onwards until he couldn’t take anymore’ type.

Rather than get into any kind of emotional discussion about it with Sylvain— he’d had more than enough of that for one day— he just rolled his eyes and said, “Let’s hurry up and find the professor before something else stupid happens, and we get into even more trouble.”

“Who’s getting into trouble?”

It took every bit of carefully trained self-control for Felix not to jump a solid foot in the air when he heard the voice coming from behind him, and even more to keep him from reaching for his sword. He probably wouldn’t have been able to if he didn’t recognize the voice.

“No one at all, Professor,” Sylvain said brightly, folding his hands behind his head in his signature and incredibly irritating pose, smiling but in a way that made Felix want to punch his teeth in— because he was _facing_ Felix, and so would have seen Professor Byleth coming up behind him, and yet said nothing. “We wouldn’t want to besmirch your good name, after all.”

Felix didn’t really care about whatever nonsense Sylvain was spouting, but he did turn to look at the professor in time to see her raising a brow at Sylvain with a little tilt of the head. She might not have been very expressive, but— she had it where it counted, apparently.

“Felix,” she said with a nod. “Did your brother catch up to you?”

“...He did,” he said. He should have figured she’d had something to do with Glenn finding him in his room. Still, he had more important things to worry about at the moment.

“Good. Were the two of you looking for me?”

“We certainly were! Of course, I’m always happy to see you anyway.”

“You’re laying it on thick today, Sylvain. You must want something very badly.”

“It actually has to do with our brothers,” Felix said before Sylvain had a chance to say something _stupid_.

“Brothers?” Byleth looked at Sylvain.

“Yeah, turns out our brothers are just as much of a package deal as we are,” Sylvain said, and Felix shook his head.

“Glenn left with Miklan by choice. I’m stuck with you against my will.”

“Aww, don’t be like that, Fe. You know you love me.”

“Shut _up_ , Sylvain.”

“Glad to see the two of you getting along so well.”

At least this time the sudden voice didn’t make Felix jump— maybe because unlike his professor, Glenn didn’t think it was a good idea to sneak up _behind_ him.

“There you are,” he said, feeling a strange pang of relief.

It was stupid, and he knew it was stupid, but when Glenn had left to follow after Ingrid and see what was bothering her, all he could think about in the back corner of his mind where he had pushed it completely down so he wouldn’t have to _deal_ with it was that it would be just like the time Glenn had kissed him on the forehead, told him he’d loved him, and then left for the Gautier estate for a few days—

And never came back.

He shook his head. Still not the right time to deal with that— not that _ever_ was going to be the right time to deal with that, in his opinion. The past was in the past, which was exactly where it belonged.

“How was Ingrid?” Sylvain asked, their disagreement forgotten quickly, but they always seemed to be on Sylvain’s part.

“She’s… Good,” Glenn said, his voice tight with uncertainty. 

Felix could tell Sylvain wanted to ask him more, and while he… didn’t _not_ care, they had more important things to do, and Ingrid would be _fine_. Maybe not the sort of person that should be bothered for a little while, but fine all the same.

“Professor,” he said, loudly, before Sylvain could open his mouth. “You’ve already met my brother. Sylvain’s—”

He paused as he suddenly realized there were a lot fewer bodies in the courtyard than he’d been expecting, and looked around; Glenn was looking around as well, with an almost comical-looking pout.

“Where _is_ your brother?”

“His Highness said he needed to talk to him about something,” Sylvain said with a shrug. “I’m sure they’ll catch up in a minute.”

Felix snorted and shook his head. Of course the boar would be the one holding them up.

Seeing the look on Sylvain’s face, he had to wonder if there wasn’t maybe more to it than just that, because he looked incredibly concerned— but not only was he still trying to stay focused and not get completely and utterly distracted by meaningless bullshit, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know in the first place.

“We were hoping you could help us,” Felix said, turning back to Byleth and trying not to think of the ten other things going on around him that kept trying to get in the way of his incredibly important and incredibly _simple_ question. “Glenn and Sylvain’s brother want to stay nearby, but we’re concerned about the knights and monks.”

“Do you think you’d be able to pull some strings or anything? Get them permission to come and go as they please, or maybe even get them into one of the battalions?”

Felix perked up at that, and he didn’t miss the way Glenn did, too; he’d never even thought of that, but it would be a perfect way for Glenn and Miklan to work and use their mercenary skills while staying close by. A best of both worlds, and no reason for the two of them to leave any time soon.

Sometimes Felix forgot that underneath the womanizing, following him around like a lost puppy, and acting like a general asshole, Sylvain was actually _smart_.

Byleth tilted her head and placed her curled hand to her cheek like she always seemed to do when she was confused, or thinking especially hard.

“The battalions, hm… Well, I can certainly see what I can do. My father got our mercenary band assigned as one, so I don’t see why not…”

“Professor!”

Felix would have cursed the boar if he had thought it would do any good, interrupting just as Byleth was coming to her decision. He trotted up behind them, followed by Dedue as always, and lingering in the background watching with his arms crossed and his back pressed against the wall, Miklan…

His eyes wanted to dart away, to look _anywhere_ else. He tried to disguise it as casual disinterest; he didn’t think it worked.

Felix usually didn’t have any problem disliking people at first glance. He didn’t like _most_ people after all, and his patience tended to be thin even with most people he _did_ like. But the source of his distaste for Miklan was childish, a remnant of the little boy crying over his lost brother that Felix had left behind a long time ago, ready to blame anyone and anything for something he had no way of understanding.

There was some part of Felix’s brain that would always see Miklan as the reason he had lost his brother, even if the rational part of his brain, the part that had left that snivelling and weakness behind, told him that no one had forced Glenn to leave. He had left because Faerghus and its stupid noble traditions had failed him, and Felix had just been a sad casualty to that. Now that he had actually seen Glenn, spoken with him, _held_ him again, he understood that better than ever— and was even starting to believe that Glenn truly felt sorry for leaving, even if it had been something he’d had to do.

And yet those golden-brown eyes, the same as Sylvain’s, seemed to taunt him from that far wall as Miklan— _surveyed_.

“Nice of you to finally join us, boar,” Felix sneered, hoping that his general bad mood and treatment of Dimitri would be a good enough disguise for his sudden discomfort and annoyance.

“My apologies,” Dimitri said, ignoring his vitriol as usual— normally that annoyed Felix, but since he was only doing it for the sake of performance this time, he didn’t really care. “I had a few more questions for Miklan. I did not miss anything important, did I?”

“Sylvain and Felix explained the situation,” Byleth replied. “I’m not sure how much I can actually do, but you know I’m always happy to help.”

“Perhaps Captain Jeralt could be of assistance,” Dedue suggested. “I am certain he would be more easily persuaded by you asking him than any of us.”

“Wait— Jeralt? As in Jeralt, the Blade Breaker?”

Felix looked over at Glenn, raising an eyebrow— and snorted a little half-aborted laugh at the wide-eyed look on his face.

“That is what everyone seems to know him as, yes,” Byleth said before anyone else could jump in to explain.

“Jeralt returned to Garreg Mach and the Knights of Seiros this year,” Felix added, knowing that Byleth’s explanations of anything other than battle tactics tended to be… _Muddy_ at best. She was a good professor and a better fighter, but socially, well…

Felix felt like he was in a position to judge, and that meant she had to be pretty damn bad at it.

“He’s also the Professor’s father,” he added, just because he wanted to see that look on Glenn’s face again.

“Holy shit.” Glenn stared at Byleth with those dinner-plate eyes. “No wonder I got such an intense vibe from you when we first met.”

“Oh… Thank you.”

Was Byleth… _Blushing_?

_I’m not sure that was a compliment…_ Felix thought— then he saw the way Glenn was scratching the back of his neck and grinning almost dopily, and gave his head a shake. Apparently, mercenaries were just _weird_.

Byleth paused to consider the situation again, staring at the ground with her usual thousand-yeard thinking stare. After a few moments that felt like an absolute _eternity_ , in which Felix started feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin and started tapping his foot rapidly without even thinking about it.

“My father wanted to talk to me about our upcoming mission,” she said, _finally_. “That would be a good time for me to approach him to talk about it, but that won’t be until tomorrow. Until then, it might be a good idea to keep a low profile.”

Felix was sure Byleth had seen Miklan when Dimitri had come up to her— he wasn’t hard to spot considering he was the second largest person in the group, and was even broader in the body and shoulders than Dedue, even if he was shorter— but she was staring at him now like she was seeing him for the first time.

Miklan obviously didn’t miss the fact that she was staring, either; Felix had been trying hard not to look at him so he could better concentrate on the issue at hand and not the tight feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he looked now and found Miklan staring right back at her, one eyebrow raised, not like he was confused but almost like he was challenging her.

Or maybe that was just that angry little boy inside of him that he had never quite managed to completely suffocate talking.

Byleth tilted her head, her usual stone faced expression not faltering. She turned to look at Sylvain, then back at Miklan.

“The two of you look very similar,” she said with a small nod, and Felix sighed and shook his head.

Of course they couldn’t just _stay on topic_. Why did he even start to think they could?

“You think so, Professor?” Sylvain was smiling with his hands folded behind his head, and not his usual fake chasing after girls smile; there was a brightness to it that Felix only saw when Sylvain was in an especially good mood, which despite his general (and frankly, _irritating_ ) happy demeanour, wasn’t actually that common. “I’m the better looking one, though. Right?”

“Yeah, yeah. You keep telling yourself that, Sylvie.”

“The two of you have somewhere to stay tonight, right?” Byleth asked, turning to Glenn, and looking back and forth between him and Miklan.

“We were planning on staying in town,” Glenn repled. “Not sure we’ll be able to get back in as easily as we did today, though.”

“I can tell the Gatekeeper that you’re allowed to come and go freely,” she said. “It might not stop the knights and the monks from getting suspicious, but at least you’ll be able to get into the Monastery without much trouble.”

“You’re a regular angel, professor,” Sylvain said, and Felix rolled his eyes. How did Sylvain say things like that without absolutely _gagging_ on his own fake sweetness? “Hey, would you mind if Felix and I walked our brothers back to town?”

Felix’s head snapped up at that and he glared at Sylvain, but he kept his mouth shut and turned to Byleth, who gave one of those little quirks of the corners of her mouth that he supposed could be called a smile— if you were being generous.

“Of course not,” she said. “Take your time, but don’t be too late, or the two of _you_ might end up getting in trouble with the knights.”

“Felix and I? Getting into trouble? Perish the thought.”

Even Dedue couldn’t suppress a small chuckle at that, and Felix turning to glare at him and the more openly laughing Dimitri only seemed to _encourage_ them.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning and heading out of the courtyard, not bothering to wait to see if the rest of them were following.

He might have almost preferred if they _didn’t_.

Of course, he wasn’t that lucky, and by the time he’d course corrected back in the direction of the main gates, Sylvain had caught up, and he could hear two more sets of footsteps following close behind that he didn’t bother to look back at.

“Well,” Sylvain said, loudly, right into his ear, which was how Sylvain usually said things right before Felix shoved an elbow into his solar plexus. And for good measure, he put his arm around Felix’s shoulders like he always did. “That went pretty well, don’t you think, Fe?”

“Don’t touch me,” he said, almost a reflex at that point, as he shrugged off Sylvain’s arms and took a few steps ahead of him to get out of his reach. “And stop volunteering me for things.”

“Aww, come on, Felix. We both know you wanted to come along.”

What Felix hated more than anything was that he was _right_. Of course Glenn had to leave the Monastery; there was no way he was going to be staying on the premises, at least until Professor Byleth got the situation figured out with her father. He wasn’t dumb enough or idealistic enough (same thing, right?) to think otherwise.

But walking him back to wherever he was staying made it seem less… _Final_. He wasn’t sure he could have kept up the stony facade if he’d had to watch Glenn’s back as he walked out the gates, with absolutely no guarantee he would ever be coming back. It was only years of holding himself together with nothing more than pure willpower that had kept him from spilling over so far.

Felix might have had a temper, which he wasn’t going to deny, but he wasn’t an emotional person. People always called him cold, stony, and rather than taking it as an insult he accepted it, almost took it as a _compliment_. It meant that, unlike _some_ people he knew, he wasn’t going around with his heart on his sleeve and causing problems for everyone— and unlike _other_ people he knew, he wasn’t putting on a stupid fake smile and pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He just knew there was a time and place to deal with that sort of thing...

“And I’ll decide that for myself, thanks,” he said, and Sylvain laughed even though he hadn’t said anything funny and fell into step with him.

Felix shoved him, for good measure.


	11. miklan

“Remind you of anyone?”

Miklan felt a familiar bony elbow jabbing under his ribs, and he didn’t need to look down to know Glenn would be looking up at him with that dumb grin he had sometimes.

He looked down anyway, because he liked to see it. He liked to see Glenn smiling, even if it was more of a shit-eating grin than a smile.

“Yeah, yeah.” He smacked Glenn’s elbow, and Glenn stuck his tongue out at him. Miklan resisted the urge to reach out and grab it, and instead used his hand for a more important purpose— slipping into Glenn’s.

He had been too distracted trying to listen to what Felix and Sylvain were saying— they were walking ahead, but not far enough ahead that Miklan figured they were really _looking_ for privacy— to realize what Glenn was talking about until it sunk in a moment later.

He looked down at Glenn.

Glenn looked back up at him with a glimmer in his eye and a fake innocent smile.

Miklan rolled his eyes and looked away. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m _your_ idiot.”

Miklan considered the weight of Glenn’s hand in his own. He could feel Glenn’s wedding ring pressing up against his finger where they were laced together.

“...Yeah.”

“And I’m not wrong,” Glenn continued, giving his hand a squeeze.

“...No. You’re not wrong.”

Miklan saw it too, clear as day. He just had… Other things to think about at the moment.

Still, he was glad to see that Sylvain was doing well. Not that he figured he wouldn’t be. He had always been a resilient kid, always smiling and trying to make people laugh even when Miklan knew he was upset, usually because of something fucked up his father said or did, to the point that Miklan had always had to take him aside and practically coax him into talking about how he _really_ felt.

It had sucked, being the only person who ever saw his little brother cry, but it had also meant Sylvain had trusted him, which had always meant a lot to him.

He wondered if having Sylvain crying all over him earlier meant the same thing. He didn’t want to make any assumptions like that— he didn’t _deserve_ it, after all. Not when he was the _reason_ Sylvain had been crying in the first place.

He hoped he could earn his way back there, though. Hopefully without getting himself thrown in jail by the asshole who called himself his father.

He really did have other, more important things to be worrying about than what was plainly going on between his brother and Glenn’s, no matter how amused Glenn seemed to be by the whole thing— namely, whatever Dimitri had been talking about when he’d mentioned their mission, and some kind of trouble that House Gautier had asked for help with…

The Margrave was a proud man. For him to have gone hat in hand to the Church, and for that mission to end up in the hands of the Blue Lions, it had to be something _wild_. Dimitri hadn’t said what it was— Miklan had a feeling that even if he hadn’t interrupted with his accusations and then left, he wouldn’t have wanted to tell him.

Sylvain, though? Well— he didn’t want to say he was _sure_ he would share with him, even after all the bonding they’d done, but if there was anyone who could understand Gautier family issues, it was him. Faerghus had some pretty widespread problems, of course— that was why he’d been so desperate, begging Glenn to come away with him before he became a casualty to its nonsense— but the Gautier family was its own special kind of fucked up, in a way that you could only really understand if you’d lived it.

Almost like he could read his mind— or maybe he was just checking to make sure they were still following, since Miklan had gone quiet again and Glenn was staring off into the distance with whatever thoughts _he_ was preoccupied with— Sylvain looked back at him over his shoulder and caught his eye.

Miklan untangled his hand from Glenn’s and nudged him in the ribs— a much harder feat than the reverse, since he had to bend over slightly to do it.

“You should go ahead with Felix,” he said, trying to make it sound like a casual suggestion.

He should have known better.

Glenn looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Should I?”

“I’ve… Got a couple of things I want to ask Sylvie,” he said. He couldn’t lie to Glenn. Not that he’d ever _wanted_ to lie to him, he just— figured he’d save telling him for when he actually knew all the details. “Apparently my ‘father’ is having some kind of problem that he went to the Church for, and they’re sending the Blue Lions to help. I’m hoping Sylvain will tell me what’s going on.”

“You sure it’s a smart idea to get involved? If it’s something to do with your father, and we’re trying to _avoid_ him figuring out we’re hanging around— it just seems counter-productive.

Miklan snorted. “Maybe. Probably. And if it were the knights or whoever the fuck being sent to deal wth it, I wouldn’t care at all. But fuck if I’m gonna led that jackass drag Sylvie and his friends into whatever trouble _he’s_ gotten into without knowing what’s going on.”

Glenn reached up to pinch Miklan’s cheek. “You’re cute.”

He sped up to catch up with Felix, leaving Miklan walking along behind the rest of them. He put his arm around Felix’s shoulder, which wasn’t rebuffed the way Sylvain’s was earlier, and he leaned in to say something in Felix’s ear that Miklan couldn’t hear.

Sylvain, with his hands folded behind his head, fell back into the same spot at Miklan’s side that Glenn had just left, looking up at him curiously.

Miklan hadn’t noticed it before, but Sylvain— didn’t have to look up that high. He was taller than Glenn— not that that was much of a surprise, since Glenn wasn’t exactly a tall man to begin with, and if Felix was any indication that was sort of a Fraldarius _thing_ — but while he wasn’t exactly a mountain of a man, he was tall and broad shouldered and just generally… _Bigger_ than Miklan was expecting.

Not that he really knew what he’d been expecting in the first place. He supposed his brain had just… Refused to move too far past the image he’d always had in his mind of the little brother he’d left behind.

He didn’t feel like psychoanalyzing himself at the moment, though— so he forced himself to focus on the matter at hand.

“So,” Sylvain said, beating him to the punch. “What did you and His Highness have to talk about?”

Miklan could have told him, and wasn’t fond of the idea of _lying_ to Sylvain, but— he didn’t feel like badmouthing the Prince of Faerghus to his little brother, who was his childhood friend, so he decided on giving him the abridged version.

“He wanted to know if I knew anything about what’s going on with our House,” he said. “When I made it clear that I had no clue what he was talking about, we went to find the two of you.”

“What? Did he think you were… _Involved_ , or something?”

Sylvain was frowning, and Miklan shrugged.

“No idea. Once he realized I didn’t know anything, he wouldn’t _tell_ me anything, either.”

“His Highness is getting paranoid— not that I blame him. It’s been a pretty rough year so far, and it’s hardly even begun.”

Miklan nodded; they’d hinted a few times at something going on, but no one had said exactly what. But he could figure out what had _already_ happened later. He was more concerned about what was happening at the moment…

“What _is_ going on?” he asked, figuring being upfront was the best way to go about things. “What kind of trouble has the old man gotten himself into that he’s making all of you clear up?”

Sylvain was silent.

At first, Miklan thought he was just thinking about what to say— then, after a few heartbeats passed and Sylvain still wasn’t saying anything, he started to change his opinion on that. It was less like he was trying to figure out what to say, and more like he didn’t know whether to say something at _all_.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. He wanted to know— it was going to eat him up inside until he found out. But not if it was going to stress Sylvain out, or get him into trouble.

“It’s—” Sylvain sighed. “No, you deserve to know. Someone… _Stole_ the Lance of Ruin.”

“...What?”

Miklan stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Sylvain like he’d grown a second head as he let that knowledge sink in. Sylvain stopped too, looking back at him and frowning.

“...Miklan? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, just… How could anyone be that _stupid_?”

He couldn’t even imagine it. Sure, it was rare and valuable and all that, and he was sure it had been a big temptation for thieves over the years, like any Hero’s Relic, but…

It was the _Lance of Ruin_. House Gautier was one of the most prolific houses in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, meaning they could call on the Church at a moment’s notice— which they would answer, because it was a _literal holy artifact_. If they were sending students, too, the Church had to think it wasn’t _that_ big a deal— no giant shadowy organization or massive threat to the Church as a whole, or they’d be sending the Knights of Seiros after them instead.

“Who are they, anyway?” He had a feeling he already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it directly from someone who _actually_ knew what was going on.

“No one special— just a bunch of bandits who raided the estate while the Margrave was away on business. Apparently they tried to hold the Lance for _ransom_.”

Sylvain laughed, even though he didn’t sound very amused— and Miklan couldn’t blame him.

He laughed, too, not because it was funny, but because it was— _absurd_.

“Do they really not know what they have or what they’re doing?” he asked, shaking his head. “I mean, they can’t even _use_ the damn thing, and now they’ve got the Church and the Kingdom out for their heads…”

It wasn’t like he’d never… _Considered_ the possibility himself, but at least he’d had a good reason. Or, well. A reason that made the stupidity slightly more understandable, if only because it was driven by emotion, instead of greed or… _Whatever_ these bandits thought they were doing. For him, it wouldn’t have been about money, or power, or whatever these idiots were after, it would have been about hitting his father where it hurt and showing him that a Crest and a family name didn’t mean anything when someone without all of that could swoop in and take it from you at a moment’s notice.

Just stealing it for money? There were way less _dangerous_ things you could steal that wouldn’t get the entire Church out for your head.

“Idiots…” He shook his head again. “Glad they’re not sending you after someone _competent_ , at least.”

“Yeah…”

Sylvain didn’t sound quite as convinced as he did, and was frowning and staring at his feet as they walked.

“Everything okay, Sylvie?”

It felt _way_ too good to be using that dumb childhood nickname again— and the way Sylvain always kind of perked up when he heard him say it helped. He was sure that the longer he stuck around, the more Sylvain would start to hate it— probably start telling him to knock it off. But Miklan was okay with that.

It meant that he was still around, still being an older brother. And that was enough for him.

“No, it was a dumb thought. Forget about it.”

Sylvain tried to walk ahead to join back up with Felix and Glenn, but Miklan reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hold up,” he said. “I spend all of my time hanging out with mercenaries, Sylvain. _Most_ of the things I hear all day are pretty fucking dumb. No matter what you have to say, I promise I’ve heard worse.”

And as much as that was true— the people he actually liked were few and far between and so Miklan tried not to lie to them unless he absolutely had to— it was more important to him that Sylvain say whatever he was going to say, regardless.

Was it asking too much that he wanted Sylvain to trust him? Probably, but he wanted it so bad it hurt.

“I was just thinking…” Sylvain shook his head and pursed his lips like he was about to stop himself again, then sighed and pushed through it. “The more I think about it, the stupider it sounds, but it would be nice if you and Glenn could… I don’t know… Be there, I guess. To help out. Not that I’m all that worried about a bunch of bandits, we’re pretty much used to dealing with that sort of thing by now, but something about the whole situation just doesn’t sit right with me. Like you said, it seems dumb even by the standards of a bunch of thieves, and I would just… I don’t know, feel a lot better if I knew we had some seasoned mercenaries on our side.”

There were a lot of things Miklan could have said; the first one that jumped into his head was to point out that the Knights of Seiros were probably a way more comforting presence to have around going into a fight.

It also occurred to him that, while Sylvain had specifically said it was because he was a seasoned mercenary, it was entirely possible that he was covering up for wanting to say something a lot more embarrassing and heartfelt— that he wanted _Miklan_ to be there, specifically.

But Miklan had no intentions of getting his hopes up like that, no matter how much sense it made. Maybe one day they would get to the point that he could say something like that, and tease Sylvain about it, but they weren’t there yet.

Instead he just nodded and said, “Hey, if your teacher can get us fixed up, Glenn and I can help out, no problem. Taking care of bandits is like half our job.”

He had no idea if Glenn was listening— looking at the back of his head, the way he was chattering about something to an annoyed looking Felix who nevertheless was paying a lot of attention to what he was saying, he was going to guess he wasn’t. But it wasn’t the first time he’d volunteered Glenn for something, and almost certainly wouldn’t be the last. Glenn always insisted that _he_ was better at planning things and taking care of what he called the ‘brain work’, which since Miklan knew Glenn was plenty smart— at least as smart as him— he figured was mostly because Glenn didn’t _like_ doing it.

And all Glenn had to do was flash him a smile and bat his thick eyelashes at him and Miklan did it anyway, even though he knew he was being scammed.

Ah, well. That was love for you, he supposed. And since he’d never been in love with anyone else, that was his answer and he was sticking to it.

When he looked away from the back of Glenn’s head— a harder task than most people might have expected, since Miklan pretty much wanted to spend all of his time looking at Glenn, or at least as much of it as he could— he found Sylvain looking at him like _he_ was the one with two heads now.

“You serious?” he asked, and Miklan was only entertained by the look on Sylvain’s face for a second before he realized how genuinely surprised he sounded— and how _angry_ that made him.

Not at Sylvain, gods no. But at everything that had made Sylvain think it was stupid to ask him for his help, and had made him surprised that he would say _yes_. Faerghus, their father, himself— all of the things that had made Sylvain think he couldn’t depend on people for help.

A lesson Miklan had learned young, and had hoped Sylvain would _never_ have to learn— but which he had probably _forced_ him to learn when he’d left…

“‘Course I am.” Miklan gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. “I told you already, didn’t I? I’m not going anywhere any time soon. And I might as well help out while I’m here. As long as it’s not going to get me thrown in jail, of course.”

Sylvain laughed and shook his head. “Hey, you never know; if the Professor can get you to come along with us, the Margrave might have to actually _acknowledge_ that you _helped_ him.”

Sylvain laughed more; this time he was laughing more like he’d just told a funny joke, and Miklan couldn’t help but laugh along with him, because it _was_ a joke.

Even if he did help out, he had no intentions of letting his so-called ‘father’ know— it would be ideal if the Margrave had no idea he even existed, as far as he was concerned. And he wasn’t doing it for _him_ , even a little bit.

“You’re a laugh riot, Sylvie,” he said, patting him on the back. “C’mon. We’re dragging behind, and we don’t want you being out too late; it’s already starting to get dark.”

“Huh? So it is.” Sylvain looked around like he’d only _just_ noticed that the sun was going down. Then, he smiled at Miklan. “Don’t worry, though. I’ve got _plenty_ of experience sneaking back into the Monastery after hours.”

“I don’t want to know,” Miklan said firmly, with a shake of his head— then, he moved his hand from Sylvain’s back to his head so he could ruffle his hair.

Sylvain made an objecting noise and tried to swat his hand away, but when Miklan looked over at him, he was smiling.

“Hey, are you two planning to spend the night out here or what?”

Glenn and Felix had stopped not far ahead, just in front of the inn, unnoticed until Miklan immediately went to snap back at his husband— but decided to just roll his eyes instead.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming. I know you’re needy and all, but relax.”

He took a lot of delight in the way Glenn’s face flushed immediately— despite the fact that they had literally been married for almost half their lives, and he really shouldn’t have been surprised or embarrassed anymore.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Sylvain looked caught off guard for a second— but just as quickly it went back to the same smile from before and he said, “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

As Felix moved to head back the way they had come— and in Sylvain’s direction— Miklan migrated over to Glenn, who was still giving him a dirty look over that ‘needy’ comment. He probably would have laughed if he wasn’t so distracted looking back over his shoulder, watching Sylvain fall into step with Felix— and then look back at _him_ over his shoulder, like he was making sure he was still there.

Miklan nodded at him. Sylvain smiled.

Sylvain quickly got distracted by something Felix was saying and turned away, but Miklan felt compelled to keep watching him until he had walked down the street, turned a corner, and was out of sight. A moment later he was surprised that Glenn was so quiet— that he hadn’t teased him about it at all, when that was normally Glenn’s favourite thing in the world.

When he looked over, though, Glenn was just… _Smiling_ at him.

“So,” he asked, reaching out to rub a hand along Miklan’s bicep— a feeling that instantly made a whole bunch of tension that he hadn’t realized he was holding disappear, to the point that he almost felt weak at the knees… A less than ideal situation since they were standing on the street in _front_ of the inn. “Having a good birthday so far, babe?”

Miklan blinked a few times, shook his head to clear it, and immediately put an arm around Glenn’s shoulders to pull him in and press a kiss to his forehead.

“Yeah,” he murmured against his skin. “Yeah, I am.”


	12. glenn

It felt like it had been so long since they’d gotten a chance to sleep in a real bed, instead of a sleeping bag or a cot, that Glenn couldn’t resist the urge to just— _throw_ himself onto the bed as soon as they walked into the room.

He buried his face in the pillow, spreading his legs and arms as far as they would go, and completely ignored Miklan laughing at him in favour of melting into the mattress. It was _much_ harder to ignore when Miklan reached out and smacked his ass hard enough to make a distinct _THWACK_ sound.

In fact, he didn’t so much ignore it as he launched straight up and threw the pillow he’d shoved his face in right at Miklan’s big dumb head.

Miklan caught it, of course— the bastard. Glenn rolled his eyes at the grin Miklan gave him, and didn’t bother trying to block or catch the pillow when Miklan gently tossed it back at him.

“You’re gross,” Miklan said. “At least get washed up before you go rolling all over the bed.”

“ _You’re_ gross.” Admittedly, it wasn’t Glenn’s best comeback. But he was sure Miklan would forgive him.

“I’m not the one with blood all over my face. C’mon, bath time.”

Glenn rolled his eyes even harder, but Miklan was too busy stripping to make a snide comment about it. And then Glenn was too busy _watching_ Miklan strip to continue being… _Difficult_.

When he was a kid, he never would have acted like this— something he didn’t normally think too much about, but being around Felix made him feel nostalgic, and he was yet to decide if that was good, or bad, or maybe a little bit of both.

Of course, he’d had a few… _Moments_ when he was younger, and when he was joking and playing around with his friends, especially Miklan, he’d been pretty wild. But in general he’d been a lot more… _Well-behaved_ , or what the nobility would consider well-behaved, anyway. Glenn personally thought they were all a stuck up bunch of idiots (perhaps excluding his father, who he’d never seen as stuck-up, just too caught up in his own world— and excluding King Lambert, who had always been bright and happy and not at all the stiff, formal man you would expect to be a king).

Glenn Fraldarius had been, for all intents and purposes, an ideal knight. Gentle spoken, attentive to his training, quietly complacent. The only person he’d ever spoken out against when it came to such things was his father, who always managed to somehow be both sympathetic and crushing at the same time.

When he’d asked him why he had to marry Ingrid, who had still been practically a baby at the time and so much _younger_ than him that Glenn couldn’t even begin to imagine getting married to her, his father had looked sad— hadn’t told him not to ask questions like that or told him to just mindlessly obey, the way Margrave Gautier had always treated Miklan... at least, until he stopped caring about him and what he did at all.

But then Rodrigue had told him, _“It’s simply the way things are, Glenn. You’ll understand when you’re older.”_

To his credit, he was right about that— Glenn understood perfectly, now that he was older, and more importantly was away from all that nonsense. He understood that to the nobility, his own happiness, and Ingrid’s, didn’t matter at all— what mattered was continuing on the family line uninterrupted, passing down his Crest and his name and everything that came with it. Marriage was a political contract, binding families together for the sake of bloodlines and wealth and power. They had absolutely nothing to do with love… Especially if you were, like Glenn, a man with absolutely no interest in women.

After years of living with little more than the clothes on his back, going from job to job and village to village, Glenn wasn’t going to pretend that there weren’t _benefits_ to being nobility. You had money and power, not having to worry about feeding yourself or clothing yourself or having everything taken from you in a moment, not unless you were _outrageously_ unlucky, like Ingrid’s family. Glenn had spent too many nights going to bed with an empty stomach to think the average person was better off than the nobility, the way he had once thought.

Still, if he hadn’t given up his noble title and all of the trappings that came with it, taking off with Miklan into the night with as much stolen money and pawnable goods as they could carry on horseback, they never would have been able to be together. Relationships like theirs weren’t universally accepted even among the common folk, but the weren’t universally _hated_ like they seemed to be with the nobility. They might get a few odd looks from some of the older clients or shop keepers they dealt with, or have to spell it out for an inn keeper on occasion that no, they didn’t need separate rooms or bed, but for the most part no one treated them differently from any other married couple. Which would have been… _Unthinkable,_ if he’d stayed a noble.

Miklan wasn’t the only reason he’d run away, but damn if he wasn’t the _best_ one.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts— all of which had been in the back of his mind all day, but he didn’t have the breathing room to think about any of them until now— that he drifted completely out of touch with reality until something hit him square in the face.

That _something_ turned out to be Miklan’s smalls, and before he could pretend to be disgusted at Miklan throwing his dirty underthings at him (they’d lived in a small tent together for more than a decade, he’d seen a lot worse) or throw them back, he caught a glimpse of Miklan’s bare ass disappearing into the adjacent washroom, and his brain stuttered pleasantly for a split second before he launched out of bed and followed.

Calling it a washroom was probably being pretty generous, but considering most of the time Glenn found himself bathing in rivers or, at best, with a bucket of heated water in the corner of a much more cramped inn room, having a separate room just for washing up was a pretty big luxury— one he intended to enjoy just as much as he was going to enjoy the bed.

Miklan was fiddling with the heating runes when he walked in, kicking off his own clothes as he followed him in. Despite the fact that he’d just thrown his dirty smallclothes at his face, Glenn decided to be a _good husband_ — ugh— and give him a hand before he ended up embarrassing himself.

“You know you’re no good at that,” he said, all but smacking Miklan’s hands away from the runes. “Let me.”

No one said he had to be _nice_ about it, though. And Miklan certainly didn’t bat an eye as he instead went to move the metal wash basin under the faucet in preparation.

Glenn was sore all over from the unexpected beating he’d received, which was pretty typical— they were _mercenaries_ , after all, and he and Miklan weren’t exactly known for being well behaved even off the battlefield (Miklan always lectured him for getting into fights, as though _he_ didn’t get into just as many, if not more, and Glenn always had to come to his rescue). Now that he didn’t have ten other things to focus on at once, his face was reminding him of that by throbbing painfully in time with his heartbeat. It wasn’t the only part of him that hurt, but it was the most obvious one.

He wished they had a real bath that he could just… sink into and soak all of those aches and pains away, but since this was already pretty cushy as far as bathing usually went for them, he wasn’t going to complain. At least they had fresh, hot water that he didn’t have to fumble with heating himself…

Once the rune was active and given a bit of time to heat up properly., Miklan turned the faucet and filled the basin to the brim with steaming hot water. Even just the steam suddenly flooding the small room was enough to make Glenn flop down bonelessly onto the washing stool and suddenly feel like he couldn’t stand up even if he _wanted_ to.

Wordlessly, Miklan came over to him with a rag soaked in the steaming water, and a bar of a pungent herbal soap he must have gotten out of their bags while Glenn was too busy merging with the bed to pay attention. He lathered the soap between his hands and started gently massaging it into Glenn’s aching shoulders, which suddenly released so much tension that he was left practically spasming under his touch. Miklan didn’t comment.

“Washing my back for me? Cute.”

“I wash your back for you all the time. Ever since we were kids, remember?”

“You only ever did that because you wanted to see me naked.”

“Yeah, but I got really good at it, didn’t it?” He was still facing away from Miklan, but he could _feel_ the smirk on his face as he pressed it up against the spot where his neck and shoulder met, just before he pressed a kiss there. “Just sit back and relax, babe. I’ve got you.”

“I thought this was supposed to be _your_ birthday.” Glenn didn’t hesitate to do exactly what he said, though, relaxing back into Miklan’s big, calloused hands as they massaged his sore muscles. “Why am _I_ the one being spoiled?”

“Just shut up and accept it,” Miklan grunted as he dug his fingers _hard_ into a particularly nasty knot at the opposite junction of his neck and shoulder.

Glenn didn’t need to be told twice; he squirmed a little on the uncomfortable stool to get as comfortable as was possible, and settled in to let Miklan work his magic.

He’d joked earlier, but how many times had Miklan done this for him? And how many times had he done it for him in turn? Too many to count; all of the scars he had might as well be tally marks of the times Miklan had taken care of him, and vice versa.

Miklan finished with his back faster than he would have thought— or maybe he had just completely lost track of time, losing himself in the feeling of Miklan’s hands on him, massaging him and washing him at the same time, pressing kisses as he went and leaving the smell of the soap on his own skin stinging his nose, which was probably one of the few things actually keeping him awake.

He rounded to his front, paying careful attention to washing his arm. A joke about being on his knees for so long was on the tip of Glenn’s tongue when he reached up to gently run his thumb over the swollen part of his face, frowning.

Glenn laughed and reached out to poke the spot between Miklan’s eyebrows that always wrinkled up whenever he frowned. “You’re going to get wrinkles if you keep doing that. You look old enough as it is.”

“How did you manage to get these?” Miklan asked, gruff as ever, glazing right over his insult like he was more than used to it— which Glenn hoped he was, after so many years.

His smile faltered, but he reached out to comb his fingers through Miklan’s hair— it was long and unruly, to the point where it was probably about time to cut it, even though Miklan liked keeping his hair long just like Glenn. (Glenn’s looked good long, though— Miklan’s looked like a really angry bird had decided to nest in his hair, which was charming in its own way, but probably only to the guy who had abandoned his entire life to run off and marry him.)

“That bad, huh?” Miklan hadn’t even started washing yet, but his hair was already slightly damp from the steam, which let Glenn slick it back and away from his face. “Give it to me straight. Am I ever going to be beautiful again?”

“...You’ve looked worse,” Miklan said with a snort, tossing his head to ruin the good work Glenn had just done with his rat’s nest of a hairdo.

“Felix did it.” Glenn hadn’t meant to dodge the question, he’d only wanted to lighten the mood a little bit. “We were sparring, and things got a little… _Heated_. It’s fine, though.”

Miklan exhaled deeply through his nose. It was a noise Glenn was all too familar with— it was the sound of Miklan trying to rein in his temper, something he didn’t always succeed at, especially when it came to Glenn.

Usually he was in equal parts annoyed and— _flattered_ — by Miklan’s protective instincts. He could be a serious hothead; they were both pretty guilty of that, although Miklan had a cooler head when it came to tactics, at least until his axe actually started swinging. If someone hurt Glenn, or even pissed him off, whether they were on or off the battlefield… Well, it tended to end poorly for that person, and admittedly despite his usual annoyance Glenn didn’t do much to stop him unless it looked like he was about to get his ass kicked.

It was… _Nice_ , to have someone stick up for him like that. Whether it was facing down bandits with his sword in hand or dealing with jackasses in taverns who couldn’t keep their mouth shut about Glenn’s feminine looks, Miklan always had his back. There was nothing in the world that made him feel more secure.

And, against his better judgement, turned on. Watching a big, tough, handsome guy take a swing at someone for _sullying your honour_? Was never going to get old, even though Glenn wasn’t the delicate spring blossom the men who fucked with him thought he was, and he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself without the help.

Right now, though, considering the situation, Glenn was glad Miklan was reining in his usual response. He actually felt a little flare of annoyance at the fact that Miklan even _had_ that kind of reaction when he knew it was _Felix_ who caused it, because he knew exactly who he was going to side with if it came to that— regardless of the fact that his nose still felt tender and his face was definitely going to be swollen and purple for a while.

But he shoved that down quickly. Considering Miklan’s typical behaviour, it was normal for him to react like that, and the fact that he was trying hard to suppress his protective urges meant that he didn’t _want_ to act on those urges any more than Glenn wanted him to.

“Guess your talk with Sylvain went a lot more smoothly, huh?” he half said and half asked, just to distract both of them before either of them felt the need to acknowledge any of that.

“Well, if we’re comparing it to getting punched in the face, then yeah. I’d say it went a lot better, for sure.”

Miklan hadn’t stopped touching the swollen part of his face the whole time, but where it was kind of cute at first, now Glenn just wanted to roll his eyes. Like Miklan had said, he’d looked a Hell of a lot worse in the past. He really didn’t need him getting all mopey about him getting hurt over something so trivial.

Glenn placed his hand over Miklan’s, moving it away from his bruises and over to his mouth so he could kiss his palm. Then, while Miklan was distracted by him doing that, he took him by the wrist and tugged him up— considering he had no leverage and Miklan was about twice his weight, it was really more of a gentle suggestion, but Miklan went along with it anyway.

He tugged Miklan up until they were in the perfect position for Glenn to put his arms around his neck and kiss him. It was deep, but slow and sweet— they had nowhere to be, all the time in the world, at least until morning.

And maybe it was kind of childish, since they had really only been apart for a few hours on and off, but he’d _missed_ Miklan. It had been a pretty long, stressful day— he’d gotten punched in the face, he’d had to constantly worry about attracting the attention of the most elite fighting force in Fodlan because he was a merc who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he still felt like he was on decidedly shaky ground with Felix. Add to that the fact that he and Miklan had been very nearly glued at the hip for the better part of a decade and he felt like he was perfectly within his rights to be a little clingy, and anyone that had a problem with it could go to Hell.

Miklan was obviously not one of those people, because as soon as Glenn wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in for a kiss, Miklan’s hands went straight to Glenn’s waist as their chests pressed together. Their size difference was such that Miklan’s hands could almost touch around his waist— something Glenn would never _not_ be horny about.

“C’mere,” he said, which he could tell confused Miklan because at the same time he said it he got up from the stool— then he urged him to his feet and guided _him_ to sit on the stool in his place. “Let me return the favour…”

“Gonna wash my back?” Miklan asked, his grin softened by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners with genuine softness. His hands carded through Glenn’s hair the way he’d done for him, and it felt so nice that Glenn didn’t even care about the strong-smelling soap he still had on his hands, or the water that was dripping down his face afterwards.

He looked up at Miklan with half-lidded eyes as he went to his knees, tilting his head so it was leaning against Miklan’s knee. He pressed a kiss to the nearest bit of skin his mouth could reach, and he watched the way Miklan’s pupils expanded, choking out chocolate brown with deep black..

“Something like that,” he said, grinning, and nipped a love bite into his husband’s inner thigh. Just for good measure.

As far as bed partners went, Miklan was a pretty damn good one, as far as Glenn was concerned. At least, when he wasn’t _tickling him awake_ at godawful hours of the morning…

Goddess, that felt like ages ago— it was hard to believe it had only been that morning that they’d been curled up together in their old, worn out tent, wondering whether they’d even be able to get in to see their brothers again after so long, and if they _did_ , worrying about what would happen if they _did_ … Or maybe that had just been Glenn and he was projecting a little too hard, but hey. They were married. If anyone was allowed to put words in Miklan’s mouth, it was him.

Right now, though, when Miklan was just as exhausted as he was instead of making himself a pain in the ass in the early morning, it felt pretty damn perfect. The two of them lying in a bed together (that did a much better job of holding two grown men than a single bedroll, not that Glenn would ever admit that, because he was usually the one badgering Miklan to sleep with him), curled up so Miklan’s barrel chest was pressed against his back, the heat that radiated off of him like a furnace soothing the aches in Glenn’s muscles just as well as the hot water from the bath had.

He could feel Miklan’s dry, cracked lips on the back of his head— not kissing, not quite, just resting there so he could do so at a moment’s notice, which he no doubt would. Miklan had never been able to keep his hands, mouth, or anything else off of him— in fact, one of his hands, big and broad, was resting on Glenn’s hip and rubbing comforting little circles there, occasionally stopping to drag his finger along a scar he had gotten when a particularly lucky bandit had managed to break his defensive stance and glance him with his axe.

Miklan’s _other_ hand was laced with his own, tucked under their heads; they would have to move before they fell asleep or they would both wake up with numb hands and arms, but for now it was nice. Miklan gave his hand a little squeeze every so often— not a big, purposeful squeeze, like he might do if he was trying to get Glenn’s attention or comfort him in a particularly stressful situation, but little almost subconscious flexes of his fingers. That, combined with the way Miklan occasionally huffed through his nose…

“I can hear you thinking,” Glenn said, and it was only half a joke.

“Hm? Oh, it’s…” He could tell that the next word that had been about to roll off his tongue was ‘nothing’, but obviously Miklan decided against it. Which Glenn was glad for, because he didn’t like when Miklan was lying to him— even those small, automatic lies that he didn’t even know were lies until he’d already said them. “Sylvain… _Suggested_ something while we were walking back from the Monastery. I’m just… Thinking about it.”

“Sounds like story time.” He didn’t quite have the energy— or the motivation— to roll all the way over, but he craned his neck enough that he could actually see Miklan’s face, even if it was only a sliver.

Miklan had other ideas, turning so he wasn’t looking directly at him like he was— what, embarrassed? Glenn snorted and gave in, rolling over so they were face to face instead of front to back, having to shift around to make himself comfortable again.

Their hands stayed linked the entire time.

“Promise not to call me stupid?” Miklan tried to grin at him, but instead of his usual cocky, lopsided grin that always made him look even more roguish and punchable, it looked wavering and uncertain.

Twelve years was a long time to get to know someone inside and out.

“I make no such promises,” Glenn said. “C’mon, Mik. You should know me better than that.”

“Yeah, I guess I should.” Miklan snorted out a laugh and reached up with the hand that had been rubbing pleasant circles in Glenn’s hip to card it through his own hair, which was still damp and clinging in waves instead of sticking up in every possible direction, like it usually did.

He sighed, took a moment to collect himself. Glenn let him. If it was bothering Miklan this much, he knew it had to be something important, and no matter how much of an asshole he could be sometimes— and really, Miklan brought out the worst in him just as much as he brought out the best— he wasn’t _that_ sort of man.

“Sylvain had… An idea. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s a good one or not. Guess I could use a second opinion.” Then, like he was steeling himself for a terrible response, he took a deep breath before continuing with, “The mission that his class is going on… Some idiots thought it would be a good idea to steal the Lance of Ruin from my family’s estate and hold it for ransom, and they’re being sent to get it back. Sylvain wants me to go with him, if we can get it squared away with his teacher.”

“With Sylvain and Felix’s class.”

“Uh-huh.”

“To get back the Lance of Ruin.”

“Yep.”

“For the _Margrave._ ”

“Glenn—”

“Sorry.” He felt almost compelled to stick his hands up in front of him, as a universal sign of ‘no harm intended’. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just… Wanted to make sure I’d heard all that right.”

“You think it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?”

“What gave you that impression?” The sarcasm was dripping heavily from his voice, but when Miklan’s face fell— his eyebrows scrunching up in the middle again, like they had been when he was looking at his injuries in the bathroom— he couldn’t help but soften and reach up to touch Miklan’s face in turn, his fingertips mapping out the edges of the scar that ran across his face like he’d done hundreds of times before. Miklan always seemed to take pride in it; he’d gotten it saving a Duscur boy from some thugs, so Glenn could see why he did, even if he always made dumb comments about it making him seem more ‘rugged’ and ‘intimidating’.

That didn’t mean he had to like it, though. He didn’t like _any_ of Miklan’s scars. Even the smallest nicks and scratches were reminders of times Miklan had gotten hurt— and the bigger ones were reminders of times when he could have _lost_ him. Every single one of them made Glenn’s blood freeze or boil, depending on how he felt at the time.

There was one little scar in particular that he hated the most, though— the big scar on Miklan’s face might have been the largest and most notable one he had, but if Glenn followed it with his eyes— and his hands— 

There. Right below his lip. Glenn dragged the pad of his thumb across the corner of Miklan’s mouth, feeling his husband smirk and snort out something like a laugh against his touch, even though Glenn didn’t know what was so funny. The laughter, if it could even be called that, stopped as soon as he touched the small scar that ran from just below his lip, down his chin, and across his jaw…

Miklan didn’t talk about that scar. Glenn had dragged it out of him once, when they’d been young and stupid and drunk on both the thrill of having finally left their old lives behind them, and on the vinegar-y gritty wine they’d bought with their scraped together earnings— not the whole story, which he didn’t know even twelve years down the line, but the fact that it had been his own father who had given it to him.

Glenn had always respected Miklan’s decision not to tell him the whole story— not only because they were friends, lovers, and _family_ , but because he was pretty sure if he ever heard the entire thing he wouldn’t be able to resist storming Gautier territory to punch the Margrave right in the face, at the _very_ least.

Just looking at it, though, was enough to make Glenn’s stomach turn. He was sure Miklan hated his own father more then Glenn did, but Glenn was pretty sure it was a _damn_ near thing. After all, Miklan had almost… Come to terms with how much of a shithead his father was. It was probably healthier for him to leave behind his anger and hate in the long run. Glenn had seen sprinklings of what anger _could_ have done to Miklan, in their younger days, before they’d even run away together.

But _he_ would gladly hold onto that anger for him forever, until he needed it.

Glenn gently stroked the scar over and over again with the pad of his thumb, not looking Miklan in the eye but instead looking at his lips.

“Mm.” He made a non-committal noise, eyes flicking up just briefly to see the look on Miklan’s face— which was both worried and hopeful.

Damn him.

“Convince me,” he said, finally daring to look Miklan in the eye again, knowing that doing so meant he wasn’t going to be able to go against a damn thing he said, no matter how stupid he was.

Not that he would have said no to begin with; he would do anything for Miklan. Had proved that pretty spectacularly when he’d ridden off into the night with him, leaving everything he’d ever known behind when it was pretty likely they would end up either arrested or dead in a ditch somewhere before they made it very far.

Sometimes, he just liked to make Miklan _fight_ for it— especially when his heart was leading his head, like it was now. So he could see exactly what he was asking Glenn to agree to, and give him a chance to really think it over with the tactical brain Glenn _knew_ he had.

This time, though, he had a strange feeling that no amount of _common sense_ was going to convince Miklan this wasn’t a good idea— Miklan already _knew_ it wasn’t a good idea, he’d just decided it was worth doing anyway.

“I don’t give a shit about the Margrave or the stupid Lance,” Miklan said, as though Glenn needed to be told that. “In fact, it serves him right for losing the damn thing in the first place, to a bunch of _bandits_. But I don’t care _how_ strong or talented that professor of his is, I don’t like the idea of Sylvain going up against a bunch of idiots who got their hands on a Hero’s Relic. You don’t have to be _smart_ or _talented_ to be _dangerous_ with one of those things.”

Glenn understood. He understood it all too well. He’d been groomed to eventually take his family’s own Heroes’ Relic which, even while not being a _weapon_ , was dangerous in its own right. He’d heard the lectures, and he’d seen King Lambert wielding Areadbhar— _proving_ how dangerous a Heroes’ Relic could be, even in the _right_ hands.

“I don’t like the idea either,” he admitted. After all, it wasn’t just Sylvain who would be going up against someone wielding something so dangerous— It was Felix’s mission just as much as Sylvain’s. “But something like that… You _know_ your father will be watching how things play out closely. If we want to stay under his radar, that’s the _last_ thing we should be doing. And as much as I want to help our brothers, I… I don’t want to do that if it means putting you at risk like that.”

It was the same kind of selfishness that had made Glenn pack up and leave Felix behind to clean up his mess and shoulder his family’s burden… He’d picked Miklan over Felix back then, too, and no matter how guilty he might feel now, he didn’t regret it. Would never regret it.

Felix and Sylvain had other people they could rely on. Glenn and Miklan only had each other.

“But,” he said with a sigh, and he practically _felt_ the tension rush out of Miklan’s body. “If it’s really what you want to do, even knowing that? You know damn well I’ll stand by you no matter what. I just want you to be absolutely _sure_.”

He would walk directly into Hell for Miklan, after all… And walking directly into Margrave Gautier’s hands felt pretty much like that, but even though he would rather trust Felix and his classmates to be able to handle the situation on their own than take a risk like that, he wouldn’t ask the same of Miklan.

Miklan had abandoned Sylvain for him once. He wasn’t going to ask him to do it again.

Suddenly, Glenn found himself being pulled into a tight embrace, his face being crushed against Miklan’s breastbone. One of Miklan’s massive hands was on the back of his head, stroking his hair like he was comforting a child, but all Glenn could focus on was the heat, and the scent— Miklan always radiated a comforting warmth, like sitting next to a well-stoked hearth after coming in from the cold in the dead of winter, and underneath even the pungently clean smell of the soap he could still smell Miklan’s natural musk, a sort of spicy smell that had always reminded him of getting his head into the pantry as a kid where the cooks would keep their dried herbs and spices…

He buried his face further into Miklan’s chest, unashamed by his clingy nuzzling even as his arms circled around Miklan— with no small amount of squirming— and he kept his hands pressed into his shoulderblades, keeping him close, rough nails digging into his back…

(Okay, so maybe Glenn _did_ like a _few_ of Miklan’s scars— namely the little, barely noticeable white lines down the length of his back, left by Glenn’s own fingernails…)

The warmth and smell blanketing him, combined with the exhaustion from the day, left Glenn feeling almost dizzy. He could have fallen asleep, peacefully, just like that— except for the bitter gnawing in the pit of his stomach, the bad feeling that he couldn’t quite shake no matter how much he told himself that all of his thoughts were the worst case scenario.

It was just paranoia, being overly cautious— if Margrave Gautier got his smallclothes in a twist about Miklan being around Sylvain, they could just leave. It wasn’t like they were at his mercy… They had run from him once and all they had gotten was a bitter reminder of how little he had ever cared about Miklan, more enraged at what he had taken with him and how he had “embarrassed” him by taking off with Glenn...

And still, no matter how much he tried to tell himself that, the feeling persisted.

“I could go,” he suggested, mumbling directly into Miklan’s skin. The hand petting the back of his hair stopped. It was embarrassing, the way he almost _whined_ for its loss. He needed the small comfort. “You know I won’t let anything happen to Sylvain. It doesn’t have to be you.”

Miklan rumbled a laugh directly into his ear, and Glenn felt it through his entire body. Much as he wanted to just melt against him and let all of his worries drift away, he pulled back to give him a harsh look and ask what was so funny— but the hand that had been gently stroking his hair instead gripped it tightly and used it to keep Glenn exactly where he was.

“So instead of me worrying about Sylvain running off to fight an idiot with a Hero’s Relic, you want me to worry about _both_ of you doing it?” he asked, and when Miklan said it like _that_ , Glenn felt ridiculous— but he dealt with that by digging his nails in even harder, making Miklan’s breath hitch on a wince.

“I’m just… _Worried_.” That was putting it mildly, but Glenn didn’t know what else he was supposed to say. There was something more to it than just worrying about the Margrave. Something else he couldn’t put his finger on, but which was making his stomach dance nervously…

Glenn was a practical man, not prone to being superstitious, except for one or two little harmless things— he didn’t like taking off his wedding ring unless he had to because he considered it both a good luck charm and a reminder of what kept him going, for example, and he preferred constantly having the same sword repaired over and over again to just getting a new one even if it cost just as much because it was hard for him to trust a weapon to keep him safe until it had proven itself to him, and then hard to part with one once it did.

Now, though… There was nothing he could say to explain with absolute certainty why he was so nervous. He hated it. If he said as much, he was sure Miklan wouldn’t make fun of him— not anymore than he usually did, at least— but he still couldn’t force himself to.

Instead he just buried his face further into Miklan’s chest until he could feel his voice just as much as he could hear it when he said, “If you tell me not to go, I won’t.”

“You know I won’t.”

“We’re in this together, or not at all. Until the very end, right? I’m not going to drag you into something unless you’re sure about it.”

“You think I don’t _want_ to help Felix just as much as you want to help Sylvain?” Even though Miklan had a tight grip on him, Glenn fought it enough to tilt his chin up so he was looking Miklan in the eye instead of staring at his clavicle. “If this is what you want, we’re in this together. Until the very end, just like you said.”

“Glenn…”

“Don’t ‘Glenn’ me. I knew what I was getting into when I ran away, and when I married you. What makes you think this is any different?”

Another rumbling laugh that Glenn felt to his very core.

“Guess you’re right,” Miklan said, and Glenn instantly felt warmed by the smile on his face, even though he was at a terrible angle to see it properly. There was still a glitter of uncertainty in his deep brown-gold eyes, but he also looked a lot more relaxed— like he wasn’t just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Glenn could have stared at him all night— it wouldn’t have been the first time— but Miklan pushed him back into his chest so he could kiss the top of his head. Glenn was embarrassed by the little half-whimper that came out of his throat.

No one looking at Miklan for the first— over six feet tall and built like a wall, already starting to fill out around the middle in the way that was typical of all Gautier men if his father was any indication but still muscle on more muscle, his default expression a scowl and the jagged scar across his face giving him a mean and intimidating look even when he _wasn’t_ scowling— would ever think of him as gentle, or tender.

All of them would be _wrong_ , and Glenn knew better than anyone exactly how wrong they would be.

He had never met anyone in his life more gentle or tender than Miklan— when he wanted to be, of course. Not to mention anyone more fiercely protective of the things he loved. Glenn was honoured to be counted among that number, but it was also… _Overwhelming,_ at times. No one had ever treated him so softly… Not his father, who was a good father as far as the noble of Faerghus went but would still always love his duty to king and crown more than he loved his family, and not his mother, though he could remember very little of what she was like before the plague had taken her.

The idea of losing that— of not waking up to being tickled awake, lips pressing against his forehead or the back of his neck, surrounded by that comforting spicy scent— was unthinkable. The ring he wore on his finger was a symbol of that promise, their promise to always support each other, to protect each other, to keep each other _close_ and _safe_.

Glenn wasn’t about to break that promise, or let anyone or any _thing_ else get in the way of it.

“Of course, it might all be pointless,” Miklan said with a laugh— not that comforting rumble, but a humourless snort. “If that teacher can’t get us permission to travel with them, I’m not about to fuck around with the Knights of Seiros on top of everything else.”

“We’re not going to leave them,” Glenn said, as much a comfort for himself as for Miklan.

Both of them had been punishing themselves for so long for what they had done, no matter how much each of them tried to reassure the other. He didn’t know what was going to come next— and he certainly didn’t know what they were going to do when their brothers’ year at the Officer’s Academy was finished and they had to go back to Faerghus, back to the families Miklan and Glenn had turned their backs on and run away from for so long. But what he did know was that the two of them had always been good at fighting… Whether that was swinging a sword, spitting an insult, or grinding their heels on the traditions that had dominated their lives from birth.

Glenn knew he wouldn’t give Felix up again without a fight. He was sure, without a doubt, that the same was true of Miklan. And if it was a fight, they would come out on top. He _had_ to believe that.

He also got the strong impression that the two of them being able to join Felix and Sylvain wouldn’t be a problem. He thought about their Professor— Byleth, the daughter of the infamous Jeralt the Blade Breaker, with eyes that sent shivers up Glenn’s spine and made him feel like he was being read like an open book. About how quick she had been to figure out who he was, and had been equally quick to shove him at Felix, even when he’d been uncertain about whether that was the right thing to do. Was her intuition just that good, or did she know more than she was letting on? Felix and Sylvain had seemed so sure that she would be able to solve the problem for them…

Of course, he wasn’t going to get any answers then and there. They would go and meet with their brothers’ professor the next day, hopefully to get some good news— although whether Glenn thought of it was _good_ news was debatable now that he knew what kind of mission they were signing themselves up for. Still, he would be able to keep the promise he’d made to Felix about not going anywhere. And as long as Glenn was living and breathing, he wouldn’t let the Margrave or anything else come between him and Miklan…

That was the thought, the conviction he held onto with a vice grip as he let himself relax into Miklan’s chest, focusing on the sensation of Miklan’s lips on the crown of his head and his hand going back to petting his hair, rather than all of the thoughts bouncing around his head. They were together— they had found their brothers again, and their brothers _wanted_ them in their lives, even if that was still on uncertain ground. It had been more than Glenn had ever hoped for when he’d suggested the visit to Miklan— more than he’d ever _dared_ to hope for, knowing he didn’t deserve it.

There were still so many things that were uncertain, but as he let the exhaustion wash over him, the combination of it and Miklan’s comforting presence smothering his doubt, Glenn knew two things without a doubt:

He loved Miklan Gautier, and as long as the two of them were together, they would be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this whole fic fit as smoothly as possible with the lovely ["Breaking, Mending, and Forging Anew"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541750/chapters/51353188) by [InkyWandmaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkyWandmaker/pseuds/InkyWandmaker), a delightful fic meant to be a sequel to 'Tender'. This fic takes place between Tender and their fic, explaining how the brothers all met back up in the first place before the mission at Conand Tower.
> 
> There are only two chapters of their fic so far, but if you liked this, I HIGHLY recommend you check it out. It's wonderful, and I'm so honored that my fic inspired someone to make something as lovely as it. I've read it a dozen times, easily.


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